


Shattered

by AsterWing917



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: But seriously bear with me this is gonna be a while, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, F/M, Frisk doesn't exist, Gaster theories to the max, I'm desperately uploading these chapters onto here, Implied Intimacy, It might be a while, Leave reviews if possible, My fanfiction.net username is SquareRootOf-1, No Smut, Platonic friendships, Please go to fanfiction.net if you want to read the "full" version, Some kissing, Too many dogs, Up-to-date version on fanfiction.net, Why am I even doing this in tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 52
Words: 86,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterWing917/pseuds/AsterWing917
Summary: The Royal Scientist was shattered across space and time, never to be seen again... but the three broken pieces of his soul didn't die with him. Instead, each found a place in a human child. Exactly seventeen years later, the trio are drawn back into the Underground to finish a plan they set in motion long ago, in a life they never lived.





	1. Prologue: Yet Darker

Dark, darker, yet darker.

He had never meant for it to come to this.

But here, standing at the edge of the known with his entire world behind him, the Royal Scientist had already given up his opportunity to turn back. Whatever happened now–success or death–would be permanent. He wondered which one would truly be worse. Tearing away monsters' lives in an alternate universe, in the hope of saving his own? Or a release into blissful oblivion?

No one else knew what he was about to do. Not his sons, not his faithful lab assistant. His wife didn't know, of course. Couldn't, since she'd been dead for years.  _Forgive me, Helvetica,_  he pleaded into the emptiness before him.  _This is for your sake, and for our children's._

She didn't know what the CORE had really been designed for. The conversion of geothermal to magical energy, yes, but it was capable of more than that. The machine he was about to activate now, concealed in the most hidden room of the CORE and channelling the large majority of its energy, was the real purpose of this project, his real goal. Once activated, it would create a tear in space-time allowing him to enter other universes.

And once there…

There had been a time when he loathed even thinking the word. He forced it out now, forced his mind to take in the full magnitude of what he was preparing to do. It was an ugly thing he'd carry the burden of for however long he had to live.

 _Genocide._  In the parallel timelines he was about to enter, he would gain enough EXP to equal the power of a human soul. After that, he could return home, cross the barrier, collect six more souls, and set the monsters free.

"I'm doing this for you," he said out loud. "You'll understand, in time. Once I'm back and everyone has been saved."

He had hesitated far too long. Every second he waited was a chance to save monsterkind slipping from his hands. He steeled himself, stepped forward, and flipped the switch. It was only a millisecond afterward that he realized something was deeply, deeply wrong. By then it was already too late. In a single violent release of pent-up energy, everything was over for him.

Like all monsters, his body dissolved into dust immediately upon his death, but his soul remained. Normally, monster souls simply disappeared with everything else. But this one was different, its fundamental magic warped in the blast. Instead of dissolving, the soul remained intact until the stress became too much, splintering into three separate pieces that were hurled in different directions with the force of a nuclear explosion. They phased through the layers of earth and stone separating the Underground from the surface above and crossed into an entirely new world: the world of the humans.

The three pieces of the shattered soul each found a place in an unborn human child's, white melding into blue, into indigo, into purple. Their former lives intertwined with their new ones as the children's destinies became inseparable from the journey they would one day complete.


	2. Legends

_Nyssa_

When Nyssa went to sleep on the night she turned seventeen, she found herself pulled into the strangest dream she had ever experienced in her life.

She opened her eyes and found herself in an unfamiliar building. The floor she crouched on was blue metal, with intricate electrical circuits embedded just below the surface. Higher up, tubes glowing with pink, yellow, and cyan light were mounted to the wall. In the corner of the room was a single object, its purpose or appearance indistinguishable underneath the tarp that covered it. From all around her came the soft hum of machinery working as it was supposed to. Nyssa looked around, entranced by the complexity. The technology in this place vastly surpassed that of anything she had ever seen in her life. She wanted to explore and find out how everything here worked.

Footsteps rang out against the metal floor.

Nyssa looked up so fast it was more of a twitch than a conscious movement. She could clearly tell that she wasn't alone in this hall. Just around a corner, somebody was walking closer and closer. Strangely, no feeling of fear came over her at all, only an unusual sense that she knew this person. No, deeper than just _knowing_ him. She felt as if the two of them were fundamentally connected at some level. There was no way she could put the inexplicable feeling down in words.

Whoever was coming toward her finally turned the corner. Nyssa didn't even get to see his face, only the dark fabric of his robes. Then the dream faded out around her and she woke up, utterly confused.

_Adrian_

"Those who climb Mount Ebott never return."

Adrian turned the sentence over and over in his head as he gazed at the great mountain.

"Those who climb Mount Ebott never return."

As he thought about it, he also thought about Chara.

He had never known her. She had vanished a few months before he was born, running away to Mount Ebott, never to come back. But Adrian remembered when the monster child came, of course. He had only been four then, but the event was still seared upon his memory, and he doubted it would ever fade. He remembered his panicking parents rushing him back into the house and his mother screaming when she recognized the dead girl in the monster's arms–several years older than when she had last been seen by the villagers, but still undoubtably Chara.

That was the only recollection Adrian had of her: her lifeless body being carried by the young goat monster. He wondered how different his life would've been if Chara had never disappeared. If he'd known her since birth like he'd been meant to.

_Xandre_

There was legend, and there was truth. Xandre wondered which one the tale of the monsters was. Legend, truth, both? He had heard the story countless times, of course. How could he not have? It was the greatest story in human history!

As the story went, two thousand years ago humans and monsters had lived without conflict. They ruled the earth side by side, the quintessence of peace, never hesitating to help each other. However, one day the monsters grew savage as the bestial instincts embedded deep within them finally broke loose. They turned on the humans, attacking suddenly in the middle of the night. They killed dozens of men, women and children and wounded many more before the human warriors even realized what was happening.

When they did, they fought back heroically. War raged on. Both sides lost hundreds of lives. After two horrific months of battle, the humans won a hard victory, finally avenging the deaths of those the monsters had so heartlessly slaughtered. The seven most powerful human sorcerers ever to live locked all of monsterkind deep underground behind a magical barrier, delivering justice and ensuring that they would never escape to menace humanity again.

Xandre had never had time to give it much thought. Stories wouldn't keep an entire village from starving. Stories wouldn't provide everyone with enough supplies to survive through the frigid winter. Xandre was seventeen, and that was more than old enough for him to understand that survival came first. Everything else second.

So he feigned disinterest in the stories day after day, even though he quietly longed to find out the truth.


	3. Truth

_Adrian_

"What the heck was that?" Adrian sputtered.

When he blinked open his eyes, he realized he was still in the forest where he'd been gathering food for the village. He shook his head wildly, as if that would get rid of the memory of the symbols that had left his mind as suddenly as they had come. He had no idea what had happened. One moment he was pulling a ripe fruit off a branch. The next, those symbols had appeared in his mind's eye. He didn't know where they had come from. He had never seen anything like them in his life… right?

_Nyssa_

She gasped as the image appeared.

The characters in the text were alien, but somehow she could read them, and that sudden ability–as well as the message the characters spelled out–confounded her.

_MY NAME IS WING DIN GASTER._

"Who…?" Nyssa wondered out loud. She didn't know anyone named Wing. No one in the village had that name.

The symbols. The hands, the six-pointed star, the skull and crossbones, and all the other characters all carried some significance. Nyssa knew it. But where did they come from? What were they? And how was she able to read them as easily as they were her native language?

_Xandre_

_What is happening to me?_

Did someone just talk to him? Or something?

Yes, somehow, that happened. Someone or something had connected with him, communicated with him, through those symbols that had appeared into his mind out of the blue.

Who was that? The one that called himself… herself… itself Wing Gaster?

 _I wonder how I was able to read those symbols too,_  Xandre thought to himself.  _I could tell they weren't plain letters, but I knew what they meant anyway. That's so weird._ For a moment he wondered if he were going crazy, seeing messages in his head just as madmen heard voices. But somehow Xandre had a strong feeling those symbols weren't merely the product of hallucinations and a mental breakdown. They had meaning. They were even trying to tell him something.

He just had to figure out what exactly that was.

_Adrian_

Adrian took care to keep his expression neutral as he returned, bearing the food he had been sent to gather. Although the people of his village told stories, they would have little time to puzzle over the symbols he had seen, and would push them aside in favor of more pressing matters. It wasn't worth it to tell anyone. For now, at least, Adrian would keep his vision a secret.

His mother walked up to meet him, giving him a small smile and a nod as she took the berries. She had always been a tight-lipped woman of very few words. Her chestnut-brown hair, so similar in shade to Adrian's, was almost always twisted into a bun at the back of her head to keep it out of her face as she worked. She had a narrow frame, almost seeming too delicate for motherhood and the pain that came with it. Although she tried to keep her gaze welcoming and friendly, Adrian had seen the shadows emerge in her eyes, when they were alone in their home away from the curiosity of their fellow villagers.

"Bronwyn?"

Adrian looked up to see the village chief's wife walking towards them with a basket in which the food would be deposited and, later, shared amongst the village people. She cast his mother a glance that flashed with something he couldn't quite identify. Almost everyone else looked at Adrian and his family members this way. Clearly, they knew something he had never been privy to, something beyond the obvious. He wondered but dared not ask. He had learned not to pry when it came to his mother and her secrets, especially when they concerned the past she seemed all too eager to avoid.

_Some things are best left behind._

_Xandre_

Night after night, Xandre started having the same dreams over and over again. They showed him snapshots of a life: a house, a lab, a woman and two children. It got to the point where he could no longer dismiss them as random, repeating brain activity. They were real. As real as the symbols that had appeared in his head.

And Mount Ebott. Why was it that something was inexplicably drawing him toward Mount Ebott, the mountain that monsters lived underneath and the one no travelers had ever returned from?

_Adrian_

_Not even... not even her._

_Not even Chara._

He knew it would be foolhardy, suicidal even, to explore that mountain and the secret it held. But he sensed answers there. Explanations. And he wanted to get them. Not just for himself, but for Chara too, in a way; he wanted to find out what had really happened to her down there in the underground land of the monsters. When the monster child came carrying her body, Adrian could've sworn the expression on his face wasn't one of blood thirst or savagery. It was of mourning.

_Answers. I need them._

_Nyssa_

_I need to get to the bottom of this. No matter what it takes._  Some deep, fundamental curiosity–an urge–drove her.

_Xandre_

Xandre had questions that needed to be answered. Why did he keep having those strange, recurring dreams? Those memories from a life that he never lived? In his sleep, he caught glimpses of a building made of blue metal, a dark laboratory, and an alphabet of strange symbols. And all those things… why were they somehow pulling him with a magnetic force towards Mount Ebott, the mysterious mountain of legends?

_Nyssa_

Why, why, why?

She never thought that she'd run away from her home, her village. It was everything that she'd known since birth.

But… was it really?

If she'd only ever known the village and the people who lived in it, who were the two scientists in the crisp white lab coats working alongside the man whose memories she had somehow gained? Who were the two young skeleton children? How about the woman who almost looked human?

_Xandre_

He knew those weren't just dreams. They were so much more solid than that. So much more vivid and clear. And he needed them. He needed to be able to grasp them, feel them, remember them again. Relive them, even.

_Nyssa_

"I'm so sorry," Nyssa muttered as she stuffed a few of her belongings into her pack. As she slipped away from the darkened houses of her village in the dead of night, she kept whispering it again and again under her breath: "I'm sorry."

Ten more steps until she was outside the village boundaries. Behind her, scarcely a leaf rustled. The crickets continued their nightly chirping cacophony as she passed, hopefully rendering anyone still awake oblivious to the sounds of her escape.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five.

"Going somewhere?"

Nyssa yelped, whipping around. There, standing behind her, was her older brother Ray. His blond hair, the same platinum shade as Nyssa's, stood out clearly against the black of the rest of the night, and she realized with horror that hers must have, too.

"You're not the best sneak in the world, are you?" Ray snickered. "Ten out of ten for the effort. Not so much for anything else."

"Ray... please... don't rat on me."

"Why?" To his credit, her brother sounded genuinely curious.

"I need you to believe me when I tell you it's important."

"How important?"

"Life-or-death important," Nyssa said quickly. It definitely  _felt_  that way.

Ray scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"Just don't tell anybody," Nyssa pleaded. "Please."

"When will you be back?"

_He's caving, at least._

"Soon."

"Awfully vague answer, don't you think?"

"I know, I know... please, Ray..." Nyssa was getting desperate, and she hated it. But there was no way she would let her brother stop her, not when she was so close.

Ray shook his head in exasperation. "You know what? I think I'll give you a chance. Five minutes to run before I tell. Fair?"

"Fair," Nyssa sighed gratefully.

Something in Ray's gaze softened when he looked at her again, leagues away from his usual sarcastic smirk. "Don't get yourself hurt, okay? As... as annoying as you are... I want you to come back."

"Okay."

The brother and sister stood there for a moment, at the edge of a precipice, facing one another, each wondering if this was the last time they would ever see the other and not bearing to accept the thought. Nyssa swallowed hard.

"Goodbye, Ray."

With that, she was gone.


	4. Down the Rabbit Hole

_Adrian_

After a day and a half of climbing the mountain, blindly going higher and higher to the summit with no idea what he was really heading towards, Adrian finally found what he had been looking for without knowing. A few yards ahead of him, the ground suddenly dropped away into a gaping chasm one or two meters in diameter and clearly far deeper. Adrian knew immediately that this wasn't natural. It was the entrance to the Underground.

He inched towards the edge and risked a look over the side. The sheer depth of the hole instantly gave him vertigo and he sat back on his haunches, trying to stop his head from spinning. Once he had composed himself with a few breaths he looked again. The bottom of the chamber had to be hundreds of feet below him, and in the small window of sunlight that reached down there, he saw the strangest thing: a patch of golden flowers that caught the light and seemed to glow.

Bushes rustled behind him and he scrambled frantically back from the edge, whipping around as he did so. "Who's there?" Adrian demanded. He glimpsed a human shape standing in the bush, visible in bits and pieces behind the plant growth. His pulse quickened. What was this person doing here? Were they following him?

The stranger hesitated for a few seconds before stepping out into clear view. It was a girl who seemed to be about Adrian's age. She was pretty, with platinum-blond hair tied up in a ponytail and crystal-blue eyes.

Immediately upon locking eyes with her, a strange feeling came over Adrian. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before.  _Like some force is pulling me and that girl towards each other._

_Nyssa_

She felt it too.

When she came out of hiding and met eyes with the brown-haired boy, she felt it. Like a magnetic attraction. No, that wasn't exactly it. It was… a sense of connection. Like something inside her had been broken all her life and now it was becoming complete. Thinking back, she realized it was the same way she'd felt when she saw the person in the black robe in the first of her strange dreams.

A few seconds ticked by in which neither Nyssa nor the boy said anything. Then the questions started pouring out all at once.

"What do you want?"

"Who are you?"

"Why are you here?"

"Were you following me?"

"Where did you come from?"

"What's your name?"

"What's yours?"

At first they answered each other with hesitation that lessened with every question, but then the boy–Adrian, she knew now–asked her something that made her stiffen.

"I know this is kind of a weird question, but is it just me, or do you feel some sort of... pull?"

"No, no, I know what you mean," Nyssa stopped him. "It's pulling me towards you too. Though... I wonder why I don't find it weird, at all."

"Yeah."

Another silence even more awkward than the last one hung in the air until Nyssa broke it. "So…" she gestured at the chasm. "We're both…?"

"Looking for the Underground? I don't know. I just got this feeling I had to come here. So I did. And I found this… and you."

"That's so strange."

"What?"

"I got the same feeling."

_Xandre_

Xandre's village was relatively far from Mount Ebott, so if he were to make the journey alone without being found, he would have to make some plans in advance. He finally had it all planned out: in three days, he would leave the village under the pretense of hunting. That would explain perfectly to the other villagers why he was leaving with a full set of weapons and large food supplies. True, they would know something was up once night fell and he didn't return from his "hunting trip", but hopefully by then he would be too far away to locate quickly.

He would have to be careful not to leave too many footprints, scraps, or any other signs that would make the villagers' job of tracking him down easier. That should be easy enough. He could hide from his prey; he'd just modify that technique.

 _Ironic,_ Xandre reflected,  _that I'm using the same skills the others taught me both to feed them and to escape from them._

_Nyssa_

"So what now? We've come this far."

Nyssa looked at Adrian. After a lengthy conversation, they had begun to trust each other. After all, the things that happened to them were too similar to be coincidental. What were the chances that both of them were born on the seventeenth day of the ninth month seventeen years ago, had the same dreams on their seventeenth birthdays, and ended up here just in time to meet one another?

Besides. The number seventeen coming up so many times?

No matter what it was, they both agreed, they had been drawn to this place, to the entrance to the Underground. It was probably best to stick together, at least temporarily. As Adrian put it, "strength in numbers, especially if we're going into a cave system full of monsters that may or may not want to kill us."

"So we're both going… down there?" Nyssa pointed down the hole.

"I have a hunch we are... but... that hole is insanely deep and there's no way to climb down... it's suicide," Adrian sputtered.

Nyssa took a breath. "Something tells me it isn't."

"Something tells me that, too. One more thing we have in common. But still, are we hanging our lives on 'something'?"

"We'll have to. Now do you want to find out what's behind all this, or not?"

Without waiting for Adrian's reply or even to see if he would stay or leave, Nyssa jumped into the chasm.

_Adrian_

His heart froze in his chest.

_Nyssa…!_

Even though they were barely even acquaintances, for some reason Adrian couldn't stand the thought of anything happening to her. He forced himself to look over the side, ignoring the lurch of his stomach. He was shocked to see Nyssa standing up, perfectly unharmed. "It's safe!" Nyssa yelled back up, her voice just barely audible. "The golden flowers stopped my fall."

Adrian hesitated, his heart pounding. Did he really want to do this? Jump down there into that dark cave, the stranger girl his only company? Something inside him urged him to go there.  _The Underground,_ it promised,  _holds answers._

So he swallowed his terror and hurled himself off solid ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in this story, Chara is a girl. Frisk would be too, if she (he, them, it, whatever) existed here. Maybe it's just me, but the majority of Undertale fans seem to depict them as girls. Chara was about 15-16 years of age at death. Just FYI.  
> Also: Bless the people who made a work skin with Wingdings on it.


	5. Lies

_Xandre_

"I'm going to hunt," Xandre announced, shouldering his bow and his game bag, which he had stuffed with supplies the day before. He slid his knife into a sheath at his belt and turned to leave.

No one attempted to stop him. He'd lied smoothly enough that everyone believed his story, and as he walked away, he quietly praised heaven or whatever other force controlled the universe that no one had asked any questions.  _Well, people believe what they want to believe,_ he thought.  _And no one would turn up their nose at the thought of more food._

 _When will I come back?_ He wondered, going deep into the woods before turning north, toward the distant Mount Ebott.

 _I'll come back after I do whatever it is I'm supposed to do once I get there,_ he resolved.  _It's got to be something, and something big at that. I sense it._

_Adrian_

_I'm not dead._

That was the first thought that came to Adrian's mind when he felt the landing. It sent a shock wave through his entire body but it was hardly painful, more jarring and uncomfortable. The hole in the ground was far, far above him, a minuscule window into the cloudless blue sky above. He was down in a massive cavern that seemed to be lit by something more than the sun, though he couldn't pinpoint what it was. Gnarled stalactites reached down like fangs. The whole cavern was more or less just gray, the only spot of color being the bed of vibrant yellow flowers that somehow stopped him from dying. He sat up, disoriented.

"You okay?"

It was Nyssa. She sat on a rock some distance away, watching him. She walked towards him to help him up.

"Thanks, N–"

Before Adrian even had a chance to finish his sentence, he was interrupted by another voice.

"Howdy!"

Nyssa and Adrian spun around at the same time to find a large flower sprouting up from the bed of smaller buttercups. Aside from its size, one thing set it apart from the other, ordinary blossoms: it had a face. The weirdness of the situation threatened to overload Adrian's brain, and he could only stare stupidly as the flower started talking again. "I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower!"

Nyssa got her wits back first. "What  _are_ you?" she demanded.

The flower carried on as if he hadn't heard her, which was actually quite possible, given that flowers didn't have ears. "You're new to the Underground, aren't you? Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work down here! I guess little old me will have to do."

One thought surfaced in Adrian's mind, and it repeated itself over and over:  _Do not trust that flower._ There was something a little  _off_  about it, about this whole situation. The flower definitely wasn't legit. It was playing nice on purpose, the saccharine tone of its voice dripping with artificiality.

Suddenly the entire universe faded to black and white. The only things in color now were the flower and two floating heart shapes in front of Nyssa and Adrian. The two of them looked at the hearts and then each other in astonishment. They simply didn't understand. Even Flowey looked a little surprised when he saw the hearts, but he quickly got the expression off his face and continued. "Those are your souls. They are the very culmination of your being. They start off weak, but they can grow strong if you gain LV."

Nyssa and Adrian were still too busy staring at the souls to notice when Flowey made white lines appear in the air, forming a rectangular prism the two teenagers couldn't escape from.

"What's LV stand for? LOVE, of course! You want some, don't you? Don't worry, I'll share some with you!" Five white pellets appeared in the air around him. "LOVE is spread through these little white friendliness pellets…" suddenly, he sent them flying toward Nyssa and Adrian.

_Nyssa_

Nyssa finally tore her eyes away from the souls in time to see the pellets. "Move!" she screamed, tackling Adrian. Both of them tumbled out of the way, and the pellets hit the sides of the rectangle.

"Are you braindead?" Flowey demanded, exasperated. "Let's try that again." He shot the pellets at Nyssa and Adrian again, and once again they dodged.

Flowey's patience was wearing thin.

"Run. Into. The. Friendliness pellets!" he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "Come  _on,_  is it really that hard?"

Nyssa and Adrian moved out of the way of his attacks again.

Flowey's expression warped into an evil smile. "You know what's going on here, don't you? You just wanted to see me suffer."

"Oh  _god,"_ Nyssa breathed. A huge, inescapable ring of "friendliness pellets" surrounded Nyssa and Adrian, slowly but surely closing in. Just as the pellets were about to hit them, they disappeared along with the rectangle. Color returned. Flowey had just enough time to make a befuddled expression before a fireball struck him hard and knocked him far away. What seemed like a female goat standing on two legs and wearing a dress walked over and stood in his place, glaring after him. "What a terrible creature, torturing innocent youths." She noticed Nyssa and Adrian gaping and turned to them. "Ah, do not be afraid, children. I am Toriel, the guardian of the Ruins…"

But they were only half listening. Their minds were still preoccupied with their souls. Even though they had disappeared from view when the friendliness pellets and the rectangle did, they still remembered what they looked like. Nyssa's had been mainly indigo, Adrian's purple. But both of them were about a third white, and the strangest thing was that if superimposed on top of one another, the white parts in their souls would have fit perfectly together.


	6. Only the Fearless

_Nyssa_

"Come! This way!"

Not knowing what else to do, Nyssa and Adrian followed their rescuer. They arrived, before long, at an entry room. The walls and ceiling were all made of purple brick, and the floor was smooth magenta stone. Two stone stairwells led to a doorway with a sign above it. Between the two stairwells was a patch of red leaves. The place had clearly once been grand, but now, the stone was cracked and vine tendrils crawled up the walls. Toriel said nothing but waited for the kids to catch up with her before walking through the doorway.

"For a goat on two legs, she is pretty fast," Adrian remarked.

"Welcome to your new home, innocent ones," Toriel said, giving them a motherly smile as soon as they entered the room. "Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins."

For the first time, Nyssa noticed six pressure plates arranged in a pattern at the left side of the room. Toriel walked over them in a square shape and proceeded to flip a switch on the wall, which opened yet another door. Instead of walking through it, she came back and faced Nyssa and Adrian. "The Ruins are full of puzzles," she explained, "ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them." After a few seconds, she turned and walked through the door so fast that both teenagers needed to jog in order to catch up. Nyssa stopped just long enough to read the sign next to the door.

_Only the fearless may proceed._

_Brave ones, foolish ones._

_Both walk not the middle road._

"I wonder which one we are," Nyssa muttered before following Toriel.

_Xandre_

Dead leaves and mulch squished under Xandre's boots, and he cringed. He had never liked the spongy feeling of them.

Up ahead, he could just see Mount Ebott, a tall peak looming out of distant fog. It looked so intimidating, so demanding of respect, and he wondered for a moment how long it had been there. Two thousand years at the very least. Maybe it was even as old as the Earth was, formed when the planet was still a cooling inferno.  _What has the mountain seen?_ Xandre found himself pondering.  _I wonder, if it were a person who lived just as long, if it would have witnessed the beginning of the human race. And I wonder what it was like, to be there through the Great War of Humans and Monsters._

Xandre had been walking nonstop for more than three hours. The whole time, he was acutely aware that every step he took towards Mount Ebott was a step away from civilization and the village he had been raised in.  _They must be feeling so worried right now,_ Xandre thought, feeling a twinge of guilt when he pictured his frantic parents.  _I almost want to go back…_

 _No,_  he reminded himself.  _You started this journey. This quest. And it was for a reason. How much of a waste would it be if you gave up now? You must push on,_ he told himself resolutely.  _You are going through with this all the way until the end. Wherever that is._

_Adrian_

Adrian and Nyssa came behind Toriel through the purple brick halls of the Ruins, following her instructions. They flipped switches, resolved conflict with a training dummy, and listened to her alternate between explaining puzzles to the two of them and fussing over them like a mother. Finally, at the end of a long hallway that they had to walk down as a "test of independence", Toriel frowned in concern.

"I must attend to some business, and you must stay alone for a while. Please remain here. It can get dangerous if you try exploring by yourselves." She stopped and thought for a while. "I have an idea. Here, take this cell phone. If you have a need for anything, just call." She handed them a strange, rectangular, silver object with multiple buttons and a screen on it. Adrian stared, completely lost as to what to do with it.

Seeing his and Nyssa's confusion, Toriel laughed in a friendly way. "You humans have never seen a cell phone before? Oh, I've forgotten how behind your race is in technology! Here." She patiently explained to the teenagers how to turn on the phone and use its various features. The whole time, she found gentle amusement in how flabbergasted they got.

"Understand now?" she asked after her brief tech lesson. Nyssa and Adrian both nodded. "Good job, children! You are fast learners. Now, I must leave. Be good, alright?"

_Nyssa_

After just five or so minutes, Nyssa started getting fidgety, and she could tell that Adrian was feeling the same way. It wasn't long before neither of them could stand it anymore.

"Let's just go," Nyssa said. "I mean, I get that the Underground is new for us, and that Toriel is trying to protect us, but…"

They exchanged a look.

"Yeah. Let's go."

"Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that in the game, it's implied that humans' technology is fairly modern, and that monsters get their technology from the things that humans throw away. But I didn't feel as if that kind of modern setting was suitable for my story, so I tweaked it a bit.
> 
> I hope you guys, whoever you are, are enjoying this story so far! I'm going to try as hard as I can to update this fairly regularly, and I'm going to make a very big effort not to give up on this until it's finished. I already have plans for the plot, and I'm looking forward to writing them into the story. I hope they entertain, interest, and surprise you.
> 
> Do you know how long it took me to find a name for Sans's mom / Gaster's wife? I finally settled on Helvetica. (Wingvetica is a thing for me now.)
> 
> Well, see you guys for now! And remember... stay determined.


	7. Independence

_Adrian_

"You know, something Toriel said bothers me," Adrian told Nyssa after some time walking around in the Ruins. They were now at a room that contained a single rock, a pressure plate, a sign on the wall, and a row of spikes preventing them from progressing to the door.

"What?"

"Remember when she gave us the cell phone?"

Nyssa nodded, fingering the metal object in her pocket which now lay next to two pieces of unopened Monster Candy. She still took it out sometimes to marvel at it, at the skill with which it had been made and the genius minds it must have taken to design such an extraordinary thing.

"She didn't realize we didn't know what it was," Adrian continued. "And then she said, 'I've forgotten how behind your race is in technology'."

"Yeah," Nyssa said, starting to grasp at what he was saying but not yet totally getting it. "So?"

"She 'forgot'. That means she knew before. And how would she know about human technology…"

"...Unless she's interacted with humans before?" Nyssa finished, finally understanding.

There was a brief silence before Adrian broke it by saying, "I have a theory." Immediately after the words came out of his mouth, he regretted saying them. Was he really ready to tell Nyssa about Chara and what he thought might have happened to her during her five years underground?

"What is it?" Nyssa prompted.

Adrian pressed his lips together to form a line. "Um… never mind."

_Nyssa_

Adrian had his secrets; that was clear now. And it was fine. Nyssa could definitely respect that. But a nosy part of her wondered what he had been about to tell her before he decided against it.  _That's Adrian's business, not yours,_  Nyssa reminded herself. So no matter how strong the temptation was, she kept herself from pressing any further and allowed the subject to drop. She could almost sense Adrian's relief as she did.

"All right! Just one more step!"

Nyssa grabbed Adrian's arm, and he pulled her onto solid ground, away from the large, unstable patch the two of them had spent quite a while trying to navigate. They finally figured out that the red leaves in the pit where they fell represented the areas that would fall away, leaving a clear path through the danger. It had taken even longer for both of them to memorize it. Now, finally, they had completed the puzzle.

"Whoever designed the puzzles here has a pretty creative mind," Nyssa commented. A part of her admired that, and wondered what she would be able to come up with, if she were the one creating the many riddles and traps here.

"Yeah," Adrian agreed. "A bit too creative."

All of a sudden, both of them heard something. It was the fluttering of wings and what sounded like… sniffling? Before long, a small flying monster came into view. It most closely resembled an oversized moth. Its hands were clasped behind its back and it had an expression of terror on its face. Everything about this monster said  _meek._

The universe flashed once, flashed twice, before all color faded except for the monster's blue-gray body and Nyssa and Adrian's souls. Once again, white lines sealed them into a rectangular prism with the monster just outside it. Nyssa looked at the monster and felt bad for it. Fluttering up there, it still appeared terrified. It had clearly forced itself to fight them.

"Hey, Whimsun." Nyssa had no idea how she knew the monster's name, but she went with it. It seemed to have been right, because the monster looked up from its midair cowering to meet her eye timidly. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you."

The monster retreated, sniffling gratefully, and Nyssa and Adrian heaved matching sighs of relief as the battle faded around them. It hadn't been much, but they'd still managed to handle their first monster encounter without Toriel.

_Xandre_

A beautiful young doe pranced through the sun-dappled clearing, blissfully oblivious to the hunter crouched in a bush just a few feet downwind of her.

Xandre's gaze was pinned on her light brown fur. There had never been a time when he hated it more–what he had to do. But it was necessary. As much as he didn't want to kill this innocent deer, there was no other choice.

He readied his bow, careful not to make a sound. He had done this dozens of times before, but never without help and never alone out in the wild. Now he would have to. How else would he feed himself?

He took a deep breath, steadied his hand, pulled the arrow back, and let go. The deer fell and Xandre was on her in a flash, raising his knife.  _I'm sorry,_  he told her silently. _Your death will not be for nothing._

Xandre didn't want to make it any worse for him or the doe than it was already, so he made sure her death was a quick one. At least he could spare her most of the pain.


	8. Ghosts

_Nyssa_

Nyssa gave a start when she saw what was lying on the red leaves, blocking them from the next room. Was that a ghost?

The ghost had closed its eyes and was muttering "Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z. Z," over and over, seemingly to no one. When Nyssa approached, it started saying "Z" louder. However unsuccessful, it was attempting to fake sleep, and Nyssa had no idea why.

Speaking of sleep, Nyssa's eyelids  _were_  getting a bit heavy. She had no way of telling how much time had passed since she and Adrian first fell down, but she had a feeling nighttime was rapidly approaching on the Surface.

"What do we do?" Adrian whispered to her, giving the ghost a meaningful glance. Nyssa shrugged, so Adrian walked up to it and attempted to move it physically. His hands passed through the ghost. At the same time, it "woke". It rose into the air, hovering just a few inches off the ground, as color faded from the universe and Nyssa and Adrian's souls appeared in front of them. Their initial surprise at their appearance had faded somewhat after Flowey and the Whimsun encounter, but the white parts fitting together still reinforced Nyssa's feeling of connection to Adrian. Clearly, it was something deep and fundamental; they were joined by their very souls.

"Heh…" the ghost muttered. It started to cry, and at the same time, magical acid teardrops started falling down from the top of the battle rectangle. Nyssa and Adrian dodged frantically. When the ghost's attack ended, it remained there, sulking.

Adrian gave the ghost a patient smile.

It carried on crying, unleashing another attack of magic tears. Unfortunately, Nyssa ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. As soon as one drop came into contact with her soul, Nyssa let out a small sound of pain. She could feel some life force inside her drain a little bit.

"Eat," Adrian urged, passing her a piece of Monster Candy. Nyssa knew she had some in her pocket, but she accepted it anyway and thanked Adrian, sighing gratefully when it replenished her… HP?

"Hey… you don't have to be sad," Nyssa tried, desparate to stop the ghost's crying. The ghost finally looked up. Some tears still pooled in its eyes, but it had a different focus now, and listened to what Nyssa was saying. "Yes," she said in relief. "See?"

The ghost hovered there for a while, as if thoughtful, and then said, "I want to show you something… Let me try..." Tears fell out of its eyes again, but instead of manifesting themselves as magical bullets, they floated up, forming a hat on top of the ghost's head. "Do you like it…? I call it Dapper Blook… because my name is Napstablook, y'know..."

Nyssa and Adrian exchanged a smile. This ghost was so sweet!

"That's nice," Adrian said.

"Oh gee…" Napstablook murmured. He made the battle disappear around them before he shed two more tears, which fell to the ground harmlessly. "Normally I come to the Ruins because there are barely any monsters here, but today I met somebody nice… oh, I'm rambling again… I'll get out of your way…"

With that, the ghost faded.

_Xandre_

Night was rapidly falling, and Xandre chose a narrow stream next to which he could set up camp until daylight came. Drawing on his knowledge from his lessons in the village, Xandre made a fire–warm, but not too bright, lest any other people this far out saw it in the middle of the forest–from the sticks he had gathered earlier in the day specifically for that purpose. He used the remaining sticks to create a rudimentary but functioning spit on which he could roast the deer meat.

 _My first day away from home hasn't been so bad,_  he thought, inhaling the mouthwatering aroma of cooking food. He had eaten some wild vegetables as he was walking and was now craving the richer flavor of meat. While his dinner cooked, Xandre hacked branches off a tree to build a lean-to under which he would shelter for the night, glad the area he lived in was not a place where wild predators roamed. He'd be in deep trouble if that was the case. Once again, he was grateful for having the foresight to bring tools and weapons. They'd been vastly helpful to him so far.

_Nyssa_

Ahead, Nyssa could see a small room occupied by two spider webs and a sign.

"Hey, what's this?" she wondered aloud, gesturing to the strange room. The sign read,

_Spider Bakesale. Come eat food made by spiders, of spiders, for spiders._

Strangely, Nyssa had a feeling the spider bake sale wasn't a randomly placed distraction. It was going to hold some sort of significance in the future, although Nyssa couldn't pin it down however hard she tried. The only memories she could dredge up were vague silhouettes of a purple room and some spiderwebs. That didn't help at all – after all,  _this_  was a cobwebbed room with purple walls.  _Buying something wouldn't hurt,_  she reasoned.  _Food is never a bad thing._ She and Adrian each purchased a Spider Donut, the only things they could afford with the meager gold monsters had dropped as they were passing by. Some spiders crawled down and gave them the food, which they wrapped and put in their packs for later.

_Adrian_

After more twisting passages and confusing puzzles, including one that involved a room which changed perspectives, Nyssa and Adrian once again reached a fork in the path. The way to the left was carpeted with red leaves; the way straight forward partially blocked by tangled ivy. The teenagers decided to go straight on and soon came upon a balcony looking over all of the Ruins.

"It's so…" Adrian didn't know how to describe it. Beautiful? Haunting? The abandoned city stretched off far into the distance. Somehow, even though the buildings were dilapidated, the ghosts of their former splendor shone through. A majestic domed roof was topped with a large bell that had stopped ringing countless years ago, flanked by a pair of crumbling turrets. His mind conjured wild images of what this city must have looked like back when it was populated and maintained.

And suddenly, he saw it. He saw the city of grandeur this place must have been in the past. Every building was covered in coats of fresh, crisp paint. Not a single purple brick was out of place. The dome had recently been painted and was good as new, the bell atop it just starting to clang on the hour. Monsters of all ages, shapes and sizes milled about everywhere–on the streets, on the balconies, on every level of the buildings in between. Adrian could just hear their chatter. They conversed about trivial things, mindless things, like where they would go for dinner and who was doing what that day. All was well in their lives. The strange thing was, Adrian felt like he were viewing this out of the eyes of another person. He looked down and saw that he was wearing a black robe.

But when Adrian blinked again, all he saw were the broken-down ruins, a mere shell of the city they had once been. His clothes were the same as they had been before. There were no remnants of the vision he just had.

"Did you see that?" he whispered, turning to Nyssa. She shook her head in confusion. "I saw the old city," he said, knowing full well how strange that sounded. "Everything was new, and monsters were everywhere, just living their lives."

To Adrian's surprise, Nyssa gave no response but a thoughtful frown.

_Nyssa_

The other path gave them more luck. They came upon a large courtyard containing a single twisted tree, red leaves piled underneath it but not a single one on its boughs. Beyond the tree, they could see a cute house with warm light radiating from the windows. There was only one person who could possibly own a house like this here in the Ruins.

Almost as if on cue, that very person emerged from behind the tree, looking frantic. Toriel! Oblivious of the humans' presence, she muttered something about how incredibly silly she thought herself to have left her poor children alone for so long. She dialed a number and raised her phone to her ear. At the same time, the phone in Nyssa's pocket buzzed. As soon as Toriel heard the buzz, she raised her head. When she saw the two children she immediately turned off her phone and ran to meet them.

"How did you manage to get here, my children? Are you hurt? There, there, I will heal you." A magical fire bloomed in her hand, and Nyssa and Adrian backed away on instinct. "Do not worry," Toriel told them. "This will not hurt you." Nyssa bit back a scream when Toriel enveloped them in her flames, but swallowed the sound once she realized what the motherly monster said was true. There was no pain, only a sense of warmth. Toriel extinguished the fire quickly and looked them up and down. "All better now. I should not have left you alone for so long. It was irresponsible to try and surprise you like this. Err, well, I suppose I cannot hide it anymore. Come!"

Toriel led them into the house.

Her house.

 _Their_  house.


	9. Memory

_Adrian_

The interior of Toriel's house was welcoming and homely, just as Adrian had imagined it to be. The color scheme was a warm yellow. Behind Toriel, Adrian could see a staircase that must've led down to a basement of some kind. Two corridors to the left and right led off into different rooms. The smell of a sweet, slightly spiced dessert wafted through the house, and soft guitar music played from somewhere.

"Do you smell that?" Toriel asked. Adrian nodded with a smile. "Surprise! It is a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. I thought we might celebrate your arrival. I want you to have a nice time living here, so I will hold off on snail pie for tonight. Here, I have another surprise for you." She led them into an adjacent corridor. It was lined with doors to different rooms. Toriel gestured to two identical doors on opposite sides of the hall, facing each other. "These. Rooms of your own! I hope you like them." Toriel affectionately mussed Adrian's hair. After a while, she sniffed the air. "Um… is something burning? Make yourselves at home, children!" With that she ran off to address the emergency, leaving Nyssa and Adrian standing together in the middle of the hall.

"Toriel is so nice," Nyssa said happily.

"I know," Adrian replied. "I love her already."

They stood around. Adrian broke the silence by yawning, which caused Nyssa to yawn herself.

"Do you think Toriel would mind if we went to sleep?" Nyssa murmured sleepily.

"I don't think so. I'm pretty exhausted too." For a while, Adrian had almost forgotten he needed to sleep. Being in the Underground, with its constant magical lighting and absence of sunlight, had already begun screwing with his circadian rhythm.

"Right. See you later."

_Nyssa_

The room she picked, the one on the left side of the hall, had clearly been inhabited by a child before. There was a bed, a row of plush animals lining the wall, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe full of children's clothes, and a shelf crammed with toys. Nyssa started wondering about who had last slept here. Maybe this was Toriel's childhood home, and this was where she had grown up. She was certainly the kind of person sentimental enough to preserve memories like this.

There was already a set of sleep clothes folded on the bed, put there recently by Toriel. When Nyssa put them on, she found that they were a bit small but still fit her well enough. This made Nyssa's Toriel theory falter.

Monsters like Toriel didn't have the same proportions as humans did. Their heads were larger relative to their bodies, they were somewhat stockier than people, and they had thick fur, so any monster clothes would have to be significantly baggier if Nyssa tried wearing them. These clothes had clearly been made to fit to a human body, and Nyssa doubted Toriel had just stitched them. They seemed old and somewhat worn with a few seams beginning to unravel and color rubbing off at the knees.

But Nyssa's mind was too bleary from lack of sleep to ponder this theory further. She climbed into the bed, immediately comforted by the softness of the quilt, and drifted off to sleep.

_Xandre_

Xandre put out his fire for the night and lay in his makeshift shelter. A hidden chorus of crickets chirped in the bushes.

It was so lonely yet tranquil out here in the wild. There was no firelight or smoke obscuring the light of the stars, no soft babble of other villagers talking, no one urging Xandre to go home for bed. There was just the grass, the trees, the stars, and the mountain, still far away but just a little bit closer than before. The round white orb of a full moon shone from directly above. It was midnight, and Xandre would have to sleep soon if he were to get an early start in the morning.

_Memory_

Wing Gaster read the telegram and his heart plummeted.  _No way… no way._

_From King Asgore and Queen Toriel Dreemurr_

_To all monsters of the Underground_

_Today, we must bring you tragic news of the death of the Royal Scientist, Cambria Neue. She was killed late yesterday night as the result of a lethal engineering malfunction._

_How can she be dead?_

All his life, Wing had looked up to her. She had practically been his idol. He wanted to be like her, strong and smart. Now she was… gone? He forced himself to keep reading.

_We know all of the Underground will join us in mourning her loss, but a successor must be chosen in due time. We thereby summon Wing Din Gaster to the Royal Palace at noon tomorrow._

Wing recognized his own name immediately, and he stared at it with disbelieving eyes. There were the thirteen perfect, dark letters printed side by side on the cream-colored scroll. Ordering him to show up at the king and queen's palace tomorrow.

It was true that Wing had always been a science prodigy, talented from the very beginning. He had potential, his parents knew. But this? Royal Scientist? That was the highest honor that could be bestowed upon any monster in this department.

And out of all the monsters in the Underground, he had been chosen.

"...We will remember her, now and forever, but we all know what she would want for us: to move on and continue to make progress. Let us honor her memory with our new era of scientific advancement. With that, I proudly introduce the person who will be the Underground's next Royal Scientist, Dr. Wing Din Gaster."  
Wing took the microphone, trying to suppress the butterflies he felt while at the same time desperately trying to remember the speech he'd meticulously prepared. "Greetings, everyone. I'm Wing Gaster, and I am honored to accept the position of Royal Scientist today. I promise you, all of you, that I will help the kingdom and make the best of my time in this prestigious role I have been given."

As he kept talking, he couldn't help but catch the eye of a girl sitting at the front of the audience. She was pretty, with pale skin, brown eyes, and chestnut-colored hair that fell in waves down to her waist. Wing immediately identified her as Helvetica Neue, the daughter of the previous Royal Scientist. He had seen her almost every day back when he walked past the Lab to school every morning but they had never really interacted more than a wave and a nod. This was the first time he had seen her in a while. Helvetica still wore a dark dress in mourning and had an expression of deep grief on her face. Some recognition sparked in her eyes when she made eye contact with Wing. She offered a small, sad smile.


	10. Heartache

_Xandre_

Xandre's goal, Mount Ebott, loomed nearer with every step he took. At this point, he could make out the line where the trees stopped on its side, giving way to bare rock. He had a suspicion he would have to climb up there, and he quietly dreaded the hike up. He had never liked climbing mountains. But it would probably be worth it, if his gut feeling was any type of indication.

_Adrian_

_Toriel was the queen?_ Adrian thought in disbelief.  _How is that possible? Why does she live here now?_

Adrian looked over at Nyssa. Did she know?

_Nyssa_

Nyssa sighed sadly. She couldn't believe she was saying this already, after Toriel had just welcomed her and Adrian into her house. But whatever they were meant to discover clearly lay somewhere beyond the Ruins, through who knew how much more dangerous territory. So she told Adrian, "I think we need to leave."

"Leave?"

"Leave. Like… maybe permanently."

"Yeah. I agree."

"So we need to ask her."

"Toriel?"

They looked uncomfortably toward Toriel, who was relaxing in her reading chair and leafing through a book titled  _72 uses for snails._ At the sound of her name, she looked up. "Yes, dears?"

Nyssa fidgeted. "Toriel, we think it's time for us to leave."

The look on Toriel's face made Nyssa want to stare at the ground in shame. Instead, she pushed on. "Don't get me wrong, Toriel. You've been great to Adrian and I. We love how nice you've been. Thanks for the food, protection and shelter. But Toriel… we need to go. I hope that you understand."

Looking equally uncomfortable, Toriel shifted a bit in indecision before she got up from her chair. "I'll be right back. I need to take care of some business."

Without another word, Toriel headed towards the stairs and whatever they led to. And without a word, Adrian and Nyssa agreed to follow her. They tailed Toriel down the stairs, into a brick hall similar to those in the rest of the Ruins. Toriel stood there and turned just as they approached her, as if she had been expecting them to follow.

"You wish to know how to access the rest of the Underground, do you not?"

Both teenagers nodded, unable to speak.

"Ahead of us lies the end of the Ruins. A one-way exit. I am going to destroy it. Please, be good children and go upstairs." She walked off again. Again, Nyssa and Adrian followed.

"Every human that falls down here meets the same fate," Toriel said, exasperated. This drew a small gasp from Adrian. "I have seen it again and again. They come, they leave, they die. You naive children. If you leave the Ruins, they will kill you.  _Asgore_ will kill you. I am only protecting you, do you understand?"

Despite Toriel's words, they still followed her.

This time, when Toriel turned, a different look blazed in her eyes. It was resolute and furious. "This is your final warning."

It frightened Nyssa, but still she and Adrian continued. Finally, they reached a chamber with a single set of double doors at the other side.

"You wish to leave so badly?" Toriel sighed. "Hmph. You are just like the others. There is only one solution to this."

And the world faded to black and white.

_Adrian_

"No!"

Adrian couldn't believe he and Nyssa would have to fight Toriel. He was terrified, his heart pounding in his chest, and he almost regretted doing all this. The two of them could have just stayed in the Ruins with Toriel forever, until they grew older and memories of their life on the surface faded. They could have. They would have been happy like that–him, Nyssa, and Toriel, a family. Isolated from the rest of the world, but that was okay. They would have each other.

 _But we have questions,_ he told himself,  _that need answers._

Even still, as Adrian looked back into Toriel's eyes, he felt trembles of fear. Her icy glare cut into him like a knife. Was it really just a few minutes ago when she had been treating him like her own child?

Almost immediately, Toriel launched an attack of magical fireballs. These weren't the healing kind, Adrian knew; they were weapons, meant to maim and hurt. Yet these particular fireballs didn't seem made for killing. Even when forced into battle, Toriel would never use the full extent of her powers against children, especially children she had loved and cared for as her own. Adrian's heart ached at the thought and at what Toriel must be feeling.

He and Nyssa dodged the fire, simultaneously fearing for their lives and feeling pangs for Toriel.  _How many times did Toriel have to do this?_  Immense guilt built in Adrian's stomach.  _This certainly wasn't the first time._

_Did this happen with Chara?_

_Is it why she died?  
_ A fireball scorched Adrian's side. It definitely wasn't as red-hot as real fire, but Adrian still felt the pain. He cried out and put his hand against the burned area, expecting blood or blisters but finding none. Nyssa pressed a piece of Monster Candy into his hand, and Adrian was reminded of the time he had helped her in the same way. He thanked her quickly before eating the candy.  _How,_ he wondered briefly,  _does Monster Candy heal like this? It must be the magic that the monsters somehow infused in it._

His thoughts were interrupted by another volley of fireballs. Adrian hurled himself to the side and knocked Nyssa over in the process. "Sorry," he apologized, staggering to his feet.

Nyssa raised her head and met eyes with Toriel. "Toriel, please…

Toriel looked right through her.

_Nyssa_

Flames swirled, almost like eddies in a pond, around her and Adrian. It had been daunting for them to dodge at first, but as the battle went on they both began to notice a pattern. Toriel's attacks would either form two crescent arcs on either side before honing in on them or fall down in a double helix shape. As long as they stayed in the relatively safe zones, they would be unharmed.

The fighting wore on, and Nyssa could tell that Toriel was tiring. Multiple times she even caught a glimpse of tears in the old monster's eyes. She felt horrible for breaking Toriel's heart so cruelly, but there was no other way to get past her.

The next time Toriel attacked, none of the bullets even came close to Nyssa or Adrian. They came as a focused beam at first, but parted afterwards so they cascaded harmlessly down the sides of the battle rectangle. Toriel couldn't summon up the will to fight the two children.

Nyssa couldn't will herself to fight Toriel anymore, either, and she could tell that Adrian felt the same way.

Everyone stood still.

Toriel's gaze softened. "I know you want to leave, but please… go upstairs now. I promise I will take good care of you here. I know we do not have much, but…" Toriel gave an anguished smile, and Nyssa felt pain deep in her heart. "We can have a good life here. Why are you making this so difficult? Please, go upstairs."

When neither Nyssa nor Adrian moved, the smile on Toriel's face changed. It was mocking, almost. "Ha, ha. Pathetic, is it not? I cannot save even a single child… but… no, I understand. You would just be unhappy trapped down here. My expectations… my loneliness… my fear… for you, my children, I will put them aside. If you truly wish to leave the Ruins, I will not try to stop you anymore. However, when you leave… I beg you, please… do not ever come back. I hope… I hope you understand."

Nyssa's heart broke in two, but somehow she managed to hold herself together long enough to give Toriel a parting hug.

Toriel broke away from them and started to walk away. Before leaving the chamber, she turned and gave the two children one last, long look.

Then she exited. Nyssa waited until she couldn't see Toriel anymore before pushing open the double doors and walking out of them with Adrian close behind, their last footsteps in the Ruins resounding forlornly down the long purple corridor.


	11. A Revelation

_Adrian_

Beyond the Ruins was a world of swirling white and ice cold.

Even though it was underground, snow fell from above and blanketed the ground in a layer of white. Ahead of the two teenagers stretched a single trodden-down path through a pine forest. It went on for as far as Adrian could see, vanishing into the snow several dozen meters ahead. The icy wind nipped at Adrian's face, and he shivered, glad to have kept the clothes from Toriel at least. They would keep him warm enough.

"Let's go," Nyssa murmured.

Ice crystals crunched under their boots with every step they took. For a while, that was all there was: the steady rhythm of two pairs of feet on snow, Nyssa and Adrian's quiet exhales forming clouds in front of their faces. More and more of the path revealed itself as they went.

When the two of them decided to stop, though, Adrian noticed something that immediately sent a chill down his spine.

Their feet had stopped, but the footsteps hadn't.

Adrian whipped around. There were only two sets of tracks in the snow behind them, and when he listened for the disembodied footsteps again his ears picked nothing up.  _The sound must've been my imagination,_ Adrian reasoned. He and Nyssa continued down the path. At one point, Adrian nearly tripped on a stick. He sidestepped it and continued.

Seconds later a sound pierced the soft silence: the unmistakable snap of the stick.  _That definitely wasn't Nyssa._  She was standing right next to Adrian, looking at him with huge, startled eyes.

"Who are you?" he yelled. "Show yourself!"

There was no reply except the snow, lightly falling down, sprinkling their hair with miniscule, melting gems.

The two teenagers, now deeply unnerved, turned to walk faster. Before long they reached the end of the path. It led to a small wood bridge spanning a frozen river. There were bars across the bridge, but they were wide enough to fit through easily. Just before Adrian and Nyssa took their first steps onto the bridge, they heard a deep voice behind them.

"Human."

Adrian froze.

"Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand."

_Xandre_

Finally, finally, he had reached Mount Ebott.

The mountain loomed imposingly over him, but he was there. It wouldn't take as long to reach the top–or whatever Xandre had come for. Feeling renewed energy in his veins, Xandre started up the slope without hesitation. Soon he would be at his destination and the answers that awaited him there.

The long and tedious hike upwards gave Xandre time to think.

The people he had seen in his dream certainly weren't people. They were monsters, clearly, but they acted so contrary to what he had been taught all his life. They weren't snarling and fighting like wild animals. They were so civilized and so loving, just like humans. He couldn't believe they were the descendants of those who had committed mass murder in human villages two thousand years ago. And there was something unusual about all the places he'd seen. They were all underground.

That all pointed to one possibility, one exhilarating possibility, about where Xandre was being drawn.

The Underground?

According to myth, the monsters  _were_  imprisoned underneath Mount Ebott, after all. Xandre looked at the ground under his feet and wondered whether there were monsters down there right now and what they were doing.  _What are they thinking?_ He mused.  _What are they dreaming of? What do they hope and fear? They must long to escape the Underground. I wouldn't want to be punished for something my ancestors did, either._

 _If I had the power to free the monsters, would I?_ Xandre asked himself.  _True, the monsters did attack the humans, but that was a long time ago. This generation seems so much more compassionate in the dreams I had. But who's to say they won't turn savage again?_

_Nyssa_

As soon as her hand touched the stranger's, there was a long, loud, and obnoxious fart sound. The grinning skeleton whose hand she'd shaken was holding a small pink whoopee cushion. He seemed thoroughly pleased with himself, and chuckled when Nyssa fell for his trick. "The whoopee cushion in the hand trick," he laughed. "It's funny every time."

Nyssa did a double take when she saw the skeleton's face, and instantly memories of her dreams came rushing back to her. She had seen this person countless times while she was sleeping. He was connected to her almost as strongly as Adrian and "Wing Gaster", whoever he was, and the feeling of recognition was just as strong. In almost every memory of the goofy skeleton, two other people also turned up: the girl who had been there when Wing was made Royal Scientist and another skeleton, taller but younger.

"Hey, I'm Sans. Sans the skeleton. I'm actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now, but I don't really care about capturing anybody. My brother Papyrus, on the other hand, is a human-hunting  _fanatic._ Actually, I think that's him over there. I have an idea. Follow me through this gate thingy."

Nyssa and Adrian followed Sans uncertainly. They stepped off the bridge into a clearing containing a sentry booth and a randomly placed lamp. "Quick, you two, behind the sentry booth."

The two complied. As if on cue, the taller skeleton Nyssa remembered strode into the clearing. "Sans!" he yelled. "You lazybones! It's been eight days and you still haven't recalibrated your puzzles!"

_Adrian_

Papyrus stormed off after his rant, and Sans waited a good twenty seconds before telling Nyssa and Adrian they could come out.

As they were leaving, Sans called out to them. "Hey, hate to bother ya, but can you guys do me a favor? My brother's been kinda down lately. He's never seen a human before, and seeing you might just make his day. Don't worry, he's not dangerous, even if he tries to be. Thanks a million. I'll be up ahead." With that, Sans left, taking an alternate route through the trees.

As soon as Sans was out of earshot, Nyssa and Adrian started talking as they walked.

"You felt it too, didn't you?" Adrian asked her. The look in her eyes told him that she knew exactly what he was referring to.

"Yes," she replied quietly. "What do you think it means?"

"I don't know yet. But I'm sure we will very soon."

_Nyssa_

After a battle against an avian monster named Snowdrake in which their souls showed up once again, Nyssa had a theory. She had finally put two and two together–or, in this case, one third and one third–and had an idea of what she and Adrian had to do with Wing. It had been in the back of her mind for a long time, but this was the first time she seriously considered it.

"You know how we always have memories of our souls being split apart?"

"Yes."

"Well, I think I might have come up with a theory. Emphasis on  _might."_

"I'm listening."

"I don't think the white thirds of our souls are human souls, necessarily. I think they're pieces of a monster's. One that was shattered into pieces and ended up inside humans, us, when aforementioned monster died."

"Wing's soul," Adrian said quickly, immediately catching on. "Nyssa! I think you're right. That would explain the memories, the emotions, the connections we feel to people and places we've never known in our lives."

"This is so hard to believe," Nyssa murmured, shaking her head incredulously.  _What are we,_ she suddenly wondered,  _if even our souls themselves aren't entirely… us?_


	12. The Third

_Adrian_

"So, as I was saying about Undyne..."

Adrian and Nyssa froze. Ahead of them, Sans and Papyrus were standing in the middle of the path, facing each other. As soon as the teenagers entered the clearing, Papyrus turned and gave a start.

"Oh my god! Sans! Are those  _humans?"_

"Yes."

"Oh my god! Sans!" Papyrus exclaimed again. "I finally did it! Undyne will... I'm gonna be so  _popular!"_

He awkwardly cleared his throat, only now really looking at and addressing Nyssa and Adrian. "Ahem! Humans! You shall not pass this area! I, the great Papyrus, will stop you! I will then capture you! You will be delivered to the capital! Then... then... I'm not sure what's next! In any case, continue only if you dare! Nyeh heh heh!" Then he ran off. Nyssa and Adrian exchanged a look, not sure whether to laugh or be scared.

"That went well," Sans muttered. "Don't sweat it, guys. I'll keep an eye socket out for you two."

Adrian met Sans's eye.  _Why is it that you and Papyrus are so special?_ He asked the skeleton silently.  _How do you know Wing, I wonder?_ Based on the times he'd seen Sans in his dreams, Adrian had a suspicion. Surely it was too far-fetched, too unlikely...

Before Adrian could decide whether to talk to him or not, Sans walked away, scarcely leaving any footprints in the pristine layer of snow.

_Nyssa_

_Absolutely NO MOVING!_

Nyssa eyed the sign and wondered who had written it. Beyond it, she could see a single, apparently unmanned sentry booth. As soon as she and Adrian walked past it, though, a black-and-white dog stuck his head out of the booth. He narrowed his eyes and sniffed in their direction.

"Did something move?" he muttered suspiciously to himself. "Was it my imagination? If something  _was_ moving... like a human... I'll make sure it never moves again!"

The dog emerged and advanced towards the humans, a pair of swords gleaming menacingly in his paw-hands. This time, when Nyssa and Adrian's souls appeared, Nyssa looked at them in a new light. Was it true that the white pieces in their souls had once been parts of a whole? And if so...

"Who has the other third?" Nyssa wondered out loud.

Adrian's eyes widened. "Oh my god, I can't believe I haven't even thought about that."

Before Nyssa could say anything in reply, the dog sent an attack towards them. This one was different from the others they had seen, though. It shone with a blue light and was as tall as the rectangle. It would be impossible to dodge.

The solution came to Nyssa's mind suddenly. "Don't move."

"Wha–"

Nyssa had the feeling Adrian wouldn't even have time to move if he wanted to. It was a good thing he stayed still, though. The attack passed straight through him as if he were nothing before doing the same to Nyssa.

Adrian looked at her incredulously. "How did you know what to do?"

Nyssa shrugged. "From experience. Somehow."

_Adrian_

The magical lighting that permeated Snowdin was growing dimmer, in synchronicity with the sunlight above. Adrian knew this because he was starting to grow weary again, and so was Nyssa.

"We're going to have to sleep eventually," he said, looking up at the sky. He still couldn't locate a light source. "It's getting dark, and I'm pretty sure the same thing is happening on the Surface right now."

After a while, the two found a relatively secluded place in Snowdin Forest.

"I'll keep watch. You can sleep," Adrian told Nyssa. "We'll switch in a few hours."

"Thanks."

_Xandre_

The closer Xandre got to whatever he was looking for, the stronger the pull got.

He had felt it in the village, but back then it was only a faint tug compared to what he felt now. He walked in one direction, towards the source, with unshakable certainty. He didn't feel the need to consciously think about where he was going; in fact, he allowed his mind to go to other things and let instinct guide him. He pondered his most recent dream. Who was Cambria Neue? What did it mean to be Royal Scientist? Most of all, who was Wing Gaster, and why was Xandre so connected to him?

Just as he was thinking that, Xandre pushed his way through the last screen of branches and came upon the chasm.

Everything, even the vines surrounding the hole, shone in the silvery moonlight. Xandre couldn't believe another day had passed already, but the thing his journey had been leading up to was now right in front of him. He suddenly knew, with crystal clarity, that this was the entrance to the Underground. And the Underground was where he had to go. The pull was intensifying by orders of magnitude, to the point where it was almost painful.

Xandre barely hesitated. Taking a literal leap of faith, he jumped blindly off the edge. He felt something soften his fall right before he passed out.

_Memory_

"Do you, Wing Gaster, take Helvetica Neue as your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

"Do you, Helvetica Neue, take Wing Gaster as your legally wedded husband?"

"I do."

It had almost been three years since Helvetica's mother had died and Wing had taken her place. Over that time, a friendship had blossomed between him and Helvetica that had quickly showed itself to be something much more. A lot had happened since they first made eye contact at the ceremony.

Now, two and a half years into their romance, they were both beyond a doubt that they belonged with one another. This was meant to be.

A year later, their first child had been born. He was a skeleton monster like everyone on his father's side of the family. In keeping with both their families' naming traditions, Wing and Helvetica named him Sans.


	13. Dust

_Nyssa_

Nyssa jolted awake.

She sat up, breathing heavily, and looked over at Adrian. He too had only recently woken up.  _He must've fallen asleep on watch._ The two of them exchanged glances.

"What  _was_ that?"

"I don't know either," Nyssa replied, mystified. A new feeling was now beginning to surface in her. It was like when she first met Adrian, but more intense, somehow. A sense of completion.

Like the mending of a broken soul. Like the last missing piece was nearer than it had ever been before. Suddenly, the image of a boy her age flashed into her mind. He lay unconscious on a familiar bed of golden flowers that contrasted sharply with his jet-black hair. A heart shape glowed from within him: two thirds sky blue, one third white.

She looked at Adrian, who had clearly seen him too.

Stating the obvious, Nyssa said, "he's the third."

_Xandre_

The first things Xandre saw when he came to were a pair of approaching feet.

Xandre looked up and was startled to discover that the feet belonged to an anthropomorphic female monster. She had soft white fur, and small horns were just visible on her head. Her ruby-colored gaze glowed with a kind of motherly warmth. The dress she wore, royal-purple with flowing white sleeves, bore a strange symbol on its front. It looked like a winged circle above three triangles. With a huge start, Xandre realized that was the same monster he had seen in his dream. He could barely recognize her: in the dream she had stood upright with her head held high, a demeanor befitting the queen she was. Now, that regal glow in her eyes had faded, replaced by something hollow.

What did this mean?

When the monster saw Xandre, a look came into her eyes that he had no way of describing accurately. Shock? Fear? Confusion?

"Another human…?" she muttered to herself just loudly enough for Xandre to hear it. "Well, it's no matter; good thing I got here before that ghastly weed. Greetings, child. My name is Toriel, and I will take care of you." The last part was directed toward Xandre. "What is your name, young one?"

"I'm… um… Xandre," he stammered.

"Xandre, my child, please come with me. I will guide you through the catacombs."

_Nyssa_

"So it's true. There's a third piece of my… our… his… Wing's soul. And it's inside another child."

"Yes," Nyssa breathed, still disbelieving. "And he's fallen into the Underground, same as us."

"So what do we do now?"

"Keep going," Nyssa decided. "We still have a goal to reach. If we  _are_  destined to eventually meet him, we will."

_Adrian_

"Oh-ho! The human arrives!"

Adrian and Nyssa approached a clearing and found Sans and Papyrus standing together on the other side of a large square of flat ice.

"In order to stop you, my brother and I have created some puzzles!" Papyrus announced with a grand flourish. "I think you will find this one quite  _shocking!_ For you see, this is the invisible electricity maze! When you touch its walls, this orb will administer a hearty zap!" The skeleton reached into thin air and pulled out a blue orb. Adrian guessed it worked a bit like the magical boxes he and Nyssa had seen. Knowing full well what would happen, Adrian stepped on the maze. When he next looked up, he saw that Papyrus had a frazzled expression on his face as smoke plumed from his cape. "Sans! What did you do?" he demanded furiously.

"I think the human has to hold the orb," Sans replied, not bothering to hide the smirk in his voice.

"Oh, okay." Papyrus walked across the maze in order to throw the orb at Adrian. As he did, he left a trail that clearly marked the right path. He ran back through the maze obliviously and left the same trail. "Go ahead."

Of course, it took Adrian and Nyssa no effort at all. They simply followed the footprints.

"Incredible! You slippery snail!" Papyrus gushed. "You solved it so easily... too easily! However, the next puzzle will not be easy! It is designed by my brother, Sans! You will surely be confounded! I know I am! Nyeh heh heh heh heh!"

With that, Papyrus ran off.

_Xandre_

"To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. I have labelled the ones you need to flip."

The room Xandre and Toriel were in now was expansive and long. Two streams of glowing blue water with wooden bridges across them divided it. In front of the far doorway, Xandre could see large silver spikes blocking the exit. Two out of three switches on the wall had been marked with thick yellow chalk.  _Please flip this switch. From, Toriel,_ a note next to the nearest switch read. Xandre flipped both switches, causing the spikes to retract, and followed Toriel.

"Splendid! I am proud of you," she said as she led him into the next room. It contained only a training dummy.

"As a human in the Underground, monsters may attack you. You will need to be prepared for this situation. However, worry not! The process is simple. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a fight. Go up to the dummy."

Xandre did. Instantly, color drained from everything except for the dummy and a heart shape that now hovered in front of him. Save for one white third, it was blue. Toriel gave a huge start when she saw the white part, but said nothing about it.

"That is your soul. It is the manifestation of everything you are and your entire being in battle. Monsters will attack you with magical bullets. If you do not let them hit your soul, you will be safe. However this dummy is not for battle practice. It is for resolving conflicts. Talk to it. Stall for time."

"Umm… okay." Feeling stupid, Xandre turned to the dummy. "How was your day?"

"Good job, child!" Toriel praised him, magically making the world return to normal. "Now, on to the next room."

Toriel turned the corner ahead of Xandre. Just as he was about to catch sight of her again, a monster snuck up on him from behind.

"What–!"

The monster sitting in front of him now resembled an oversized frog, complete with rubbery green skin and bulging yellow eyes. When the frog attacked him with white, fly-shaped bullets that flew toward his soul, Xandre knew exactly how to dodge, even though he had never fought a monster before.

_That's so weird!_

The attacks kept coming as he floundered, able to dodge but not knowing any more than that as to how to resolve the battle. The frog clearly wasn't backing off any time soon. Xandre had a feeling Toriel was already too far ahead to give him aid even if he could call out for help. At one point two of the fly bullets came too close to his soul. One of them brushed it, causing him to feel pain all over his body.

Xandre didn't think. Desperate to defend himself, he slashed out with his knife.

The monster turned to dust immediately.


	14. The Discovery

_Xandre_

"What… no!" Xandre yelled once he realized what he'd done. "I'm sorry…"

But just as he was about to drown in remorse, he felt a new and strange feeling inside. He felt as if he were growing more powerful. It made him stronger, and he could feel that his maximum HP had increased. He didn't know how he knew this, but he was sure of it. And he hated to admit it, but the feeling gave him satisfaction.

"Child?" Toriel called back.

In a split second, Xandre decided that he would not tell Toriel.

"Coming!" he yelled back, wiping the dust off his hands and running off to catch up with Toriel. She smiled at him warmly, and Xandre wondered guiltily how she'd be treating him if she knew what he'd done.

_Memory_

Wing worked silently and alone. Helvetica and Sans were upstairs in the apartment reserved for the Royal Scientist and his family. They were taking care of young Papyrus, Sans's new brother who was now a few months old. Alphys had something to do in Waterfall. It was just Wing here today. The place felt as empty as if its soul had been sucked out.

As Wing conducted experiment after experiment, he began to notice formless energy, gained upon the killing of another. All souls started out weak, Wing knew, and they had the potential to become stronger, but until now he had no idea how souls could reach that potential. Now, it seemed, he had the answer. A killer would gain this energy upon their victim's death. Wing decided to call it Execution Points, or EXP for short. Once a certain amount of EXP was gained, a new "Level Of Violence" was reached, requiring more and more EXP for each consecutive LOVE. The thing that shocked Wing the most was that–according to the simulations he ran–every time this happened, the soul's power would increase exponentially. Maximum HP, attack strength and defense effectiveness would all go up.

Wing saw no limit to this. Theoretically, somebody could just keep killing until they were unbeatable in battle; a god living off EXP and LV from those murdered. That would take longer than an average monster's lifetime, but it was  _possible._

And this combined with Wing's knowledge of timelines…

The tiniest seed of an idea started to form in his mind, but he shoved it away quickly, despising himself for even thinking of such an idea.

_Nyssa_

"Hey, what's this?" Adrian wondered, gesturing at the larger expanse of ice in front of them. There was a single snowball there and a hole on the far side. "I'm guessing this is a game where we have to get the snowball in the hole?"

"Yeah." Out of curiosity, Nyssa gave it a try, and so did Adrian. Each was rewarded with a small amount of gold and a flag the same color as their soul.

So what would happen if both of them worked together...?

_Patience. Bravery. Integrity. Perseverance. Kindness. Justice. Using these, you were able to win at the ball game._

Each of the character traits listed were written in a certain color. Patience was light blue, bravery was orange, integrity was indigo like Nyssa's soul. Perseverance was purple like Adrian's, kindness was green, and justice was yellow.

_Huh._ Nyssa was about to ponder it further when she noticed that the money pouch was bulging this time. To her amazement, she discovered 50G inside it.

"I have a feeling the colors mean something," she concluded. Their correlation with soul color was definitely more than a coincidence.

"Right, so now we know what each soul color means," Adrian said, echoing Nyssa's thoughts. "That means I'm perseverance and you're integrity."

"Then if together we're red… what soul is that?"

"I don't know."

_Nyssa_

Sans and Papyrus were standing there, arguing with one another. A single piece of paper lay on the path.

"Sans! Where's the puzzle?"

"I think it's over there on the ground," Sans replied, gesturing at the rather nonthreatening piece of paper. "Trust me. There's no way they can get past that one."

The two skeletons stood back, so Nyssa and Adrian tried walking past it.

"Sans! That didn't even do anything!"

"Whoops. I knew I should've used today's crossword instead."

"What? Crossword? I can't believe you said that! In my opinion, Junior Jumble is definitely the hardest."

"Really, dude? That easy-peasy word scramble? That's for baby bones."

"Un. Believable."

Nyssa watched the bickering brothers awkwardly, not sure whether she should do anything at all.

"Hey! Human!" Papyrus yelled, as if just realizing they were there. "Solve this dispute!"

"Uh," Nyssa stammered. "Crossword?"

"You're so weird!" Papyrus complained. "Crosswords are so easy. It's the same solution every time. I just fill all the boxes in with the letter 'z', because every time I look at a crossword, all I want to do is snore! Nyeh heh heh!"

Thankfully, Papyrus left after this tirade.

"Papyrus finds difficulty in interesting places," Sans remarked. "Yesterday he got stumped trying to 'solve' the horoscope."

Nyssa looked at the skeleton, still unable to believe she had been his father in some sort of past life. How could she have anything to do with him? They were so far apart, a human living on the Surface and a monster down in the Underground.

How?

"What?" Sans said after a while. Nyssa realized she'd been staring at Sans as if he had dropped from outer space.

"Nothing."

Nyssa could still feel Sans's questioning gaze on her back as she and Adrian turned to leave.


	15. Fascination

_Xandre_

"Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time. However, there was an important reason for this exercise. To test your independence. I must leave you alone here for some time, and you must be able to take care of yourself before I return. Exploring alone is a bad idea. Please wait for me to come back. Thank you for understanding, child. Call me if you need anything." Toriel smiled warmly at Xandre again, which made his insides twist a bit.

She handed Xandre a strange object. "This is a cell phone."

"I know." Somehow, Xandre was completely sure how to use it, even though he had never seen it before. "It's okay, Toriel. I'll be fine."

"Good, good. See you soon!"

_Nyssa_

A small note lay beside a plate of spaghetti and a microwave oven.

_Humans! Please enjoy this spaghetti. Little do you know, this spaghetti is a trap, designed to entice you! You'll be so busy eating it, you won't realize that you aren't progressing! Thoroughly japed again by the great Papyrus!_

_Nyeh-heh-heh,_

_Papyrus_

Nyssa shook her head, partly amused and partly exasperated. The spaghetti itself was so frozen that it felt cold and hard to the touch. All the settings on the microwave oven read 'spaghetti'. It was unplugged, so the teenagers wouldn't even be able to heat up the spaghetti if they actually wanted to eat it. They passed by the pointless trap, on to the next area.

_Adrian_

" 'Warning: Dog Marriage?' What's  _that_  supposed to mean?"

"No idea."

"And those sentry booths we saw earlier."

" 'His' and 'hers'."

"Huh."

Nyssa and Adrian crossed a wooden bridge to another expansive region of snow. There were spikes across the far end blocking the exit.

"Great, another puzzle," Adrian groaned.

"Hey, look." Nyssa pointed at an area a few yards from them. The snow there was suspiciously piled up. It definitely wasn't natural. Somebody had come here before, attempting to cover something with the snow. The two teenagers ran to the pile and started clearing the snow away from the ground. Some of the snow got into Adrian's gloves, and he winced at the freezing cold sensation.

"Look!" Nyssa exclaimed, gesturing at an area she'd managed to fully uncover. It was a map. As the two shoved away more snow, revealing more and more of the image, they realized it was the region they were standing in at that very moment. To the northwest corner, somebody had drawn a large red X.

Nyssa and Adrian ran to the area where the X would be, had the map been the real place. Some digging revealed a lever concealed beneath the snow. Just before Adrian's fingers brushed it, he heard a loud bark, and whipped around to find a dog in a full suit of armor. He held a sword in one hand and a massive shield in the other. Adrian couldn't help but notice that the symbol which adorned the shield was identical to the one on Toriel's dress. Somehow Adrian knew the dog's name: Lesser Dog. It sounded ominous to him, since "lesser" implied an even greater power ahead.

Lesser Dog moved in and attacked.

"Watch out!" Adrian pointed to a shimmery white dog at the other side of the rectangle. It charged at them, managing to look somewhat intimidating for its size, and they sidestepped as it jumped. The dog dissipated after its failed attack.

"I think we should pet Lesser Dog," Nyssa muttered.

Adrian stared at her.

"Trust me."

Sure enough, Lesser Dog got hyper when Nyssa barely even lifted her hand. He barked excitedly and ran to her, nuzzling her hand. Adrian looked on in awe. It was so strange to see a fully armored monster guard romping and playing at Nyssa's feet like the little puppy he actually was.

"That battle was easy," Nyssa sighed gratefully, letting Lesser Dog run off after the hearty petting session.

_Xandre_

It was boring waiting for Toriel in the long room.

Normally, Xandre was a patient person. He could wait as long as he knew there was an end in sight. But this time, he was restless. He remembered the energy he felt from killing that Froggit. It still resonated within him, a faint buzz of power. It tantalized him. Promised more, if he would leave this room to get it.

Xandre took his knife out of his pack and studied it. Wiped the residual dust from the dead monster off on his pants leg. Was it really possible that this one object, this weapon, gave him such enormous potential? The memory that hit him earlier–one of the memories that he had come to generally trust–told him that EXP and LV, the energy, were powerful things.  _Seems like Toriel conveniently forgot to tell me about all that when she taught me about battle._

Of course Toriel would never mention it. She wouldn't want a human, already so much stronger than monsters even without EXP, to know how powerful they could get through murder.

_Murder._

Xandre turned the word over and over in his head.  _Murder._

_I'm a killer. A sinner. A murderer._

But if murdering others was such a horrible thing, shouldn't it make Xandre feel terrible inside? Like he would drown in remorse from committing such an atrocious act? It almost scared Xandre when he realized he felt nothing. Nothing, that is, except fascination.

_Nyssa_

Nyssa pulled on the lever, and could just hear the sound of spikes retracting. They went back over to the now-disabled spikes and walked through the new passageway.

_Wait._

Was that the crunch of snow under two sets of paws?

A pair of white dogs, walking on two legs and wearing dark cloaks, were coming closer and closer. Each dog was holding an enormous, deadly-looking axe. The dogs sniffed the air and used their senses of smell to guide them rather than their eyes.

"What's that smell?"

"Where's that smell?"  
"If you're a smell…"

"Identify your-smell-f!"

The two dogs circled around the humans, sniffing furiously, and Nyssa's heart pounded so loudly she was afraid they would hear it.

"Hmm…" the more masculine-sounding dog muttered, edging closer to Nyssa. The dog sniffed at her sleeve, and Nyssa fought the urge to flinch away. "Here's that weird smell!"

"It makes me want to eliminate," the female dog declared. "Eliminate  _you!"_

_Xandre_

Finally, Xandre couldn't take it anymore.

How could he be sitting here waiting around when there was so much he could do in the Ruins? There were monsters everywhere, after all. He would have to get a move on now. If Toriel came back, she'd definitely stop him, and he'd never be able to find out more about this strange power called EXP. Nor would he be able to get more powerful.

_But isn't this wrong?_ He asked himself for the millionth time.  _That one time was an accident, but if I go on doing it, I'll be doing it of my own accord. Doesn't that make me evil?_

Even though these thoughts ran through his head, Xandre shoved them away. He stood and headed deeper into the Ruins with his knife in hand.


	16. No Mercy

_Adrian_

_*Dogi assault you!_

As the world faded into battle, the hoods of the dogs' cloaks fell away, revealing the faces of a male and a female. They stood much closer together now, leaning into one another, clearly deep in love. Adrian felt uncomfortable seeing their shameless public displays of affection and would have looked away in embarassment, had he been more than a floating heart.

"I love you, Dogamy," the female dog whispered, pressing her muzzle to the male dog's.

"Me too, Dogaressa."

"Don't touch my hot dog."

"He means me," Dogaressa said with a small giggle. Adrian swore he could see her blush.

Both dogs looked up and glared at the humans. As if sharing a single mind, they unleashed identical, mirrored attacks: a pair of axes that moved across the battlefield.

"Duck under them!" Adrian exclaimed. They both did so, but neither of them were fast enough. Their souls both took the force of the attack, and they cringed, feeling the now almost familiar pain in their chests.

"Wait. I have an idea."

Nyssa looked at Adrian expectantly. "What is it?"  
"You know how these dogs can't see very well?"

"Yeah."

"So maybe if we disguise our human smell, they'll leave us alone."

"That's a really good idea, actually."

"Thought so. Let's roll in the snow."

Both of them dropped to the ground, covering up their scent as much as possible by smearing snow and dirt all over themselves. Sensing the difference, the two dogs walked closer and sniffed the humans again.

"What!" Dogamy exclaimed. "Smells like…"

"Are you actually a pair of little puppies?" Dogaressa yelped.

This time, their attacks took the form of two small white dogs. The dogs barked out a ring of hearts that alternated between blue and white. Nyssa and Adrian dodged them without much trouble, which didn't surprise them anymore. They had gotten used to it now, the way they could somehow survive magical attacks as if they'd done it before. What Adrian still  _couldn't_ get used to was that the skills were remembered knowledge from a monster who had died seventeen years ago.

Nyssa walked up to Dogamy. To Adrian's surprise, she pet him like she had done to Lesser Dog, stroking and ruffling his white fur. "Good boy," she crooned. "That's right. We don't need to be fighting, do we?"

"Wow! Pet by another dog!" Dogamy cried.

"Don't leave  _me_ out," Dogaressa protested. Taking the hint, Adrian did the same to Dogaressa. "A dog that pets dogs… amazing…" she sighed contentedly.

This round the dogs' axe attacks were slowed, as if they didn't want the "puppies" to get hit anymore. Nyssa and Adrian sensed the opportunity to spare them both and backed away.

_Nyssa_

"Dogs can pet other dogs?"

"A whole new world has opened up for us!"

"Thanks, weird puppies!"

Both Nyssa and Adrian heaved a sigh of relief when Dogamy and Dogaressa left, chatting to each other about various dogs' petting abilities.

"Wow, that was a close one."

"Yeah, it definitely was."

"Our closest call so far?"

"Probably."

"Hey… what's that?"

There was what seemed like another puzzle up ahead: two blue X's with snow forming a barrier between them. A large gray button had been embedded into the snow a few feet away from it. There was a sign in front of the puzzle that read:

_Turn all the X's into O's._

_Then press the switch._

The puzzle was easy, since the shapes changed as soon as Nyssa stepped on them. She and Adrian proceeded without much trouble, and they relaxed, letting their guard down.

_Xandre_

"P… please… don't hurt me."

The Whimsun had long given up attacking Xandre with butterfly bullets that didn't come close enough to deal damage to him anyway. It was now cowering on the ground in front of him, begging for its life. Its antennae quivered. Tears pooled in its eyes.

Xandre looked at the Whimsun, then at his knife. Then back at the Whimsun.

He felt nothing, but he knew that sparing this poor little creature  _would_  be the right thing to do. He'd already won, hadn't he? There was no point in fighting any more, especially against a monster who'd lost the will to battle.

_But there is a point,_ Xandre remembered.  _EXP._

Still.

The thought of killing something this small, this soft, this innocent…

What had the Whimsun ever done to him?

Xandre ground his teeth. He hated indecision.

Finally, he turned and walked away from the monster. He'd let it go for now.

_Adrian_

Papyrus was standing on the other side of the spikes, fiddling with something in his hands. He was facing in the opposite direction, but at the sound of the spikes retracting, he turned.

"What? How did you avoid my trap?" he sputtered. "And, more importantly, is there any left for me?"

Adrian was confused for a second before he realized Papyrus was talking about the spaghetti. He was wondering whether he should tell Papyrus the truth when Nyssa made the decision for him.

"We, uh, left it," Nyssa admitted.

Papyrus looked at the ground, saddened. "Wowie… you resisted the flavor of my homecooked pasta…" suddenly, he looked up again cheerfully. "Just so you could share it with me! Fret not, humans! I, master chef Papyrus, will make you all the pasta you could ever want! Heh heh heh heh nyeh!"

_Xandre_

After sparing the Whimsun, Xandre felt something he never expected to feel in a situation like this: regret.

_How could you just let that Whimsun run off?_ He demanded of himself.  _That was a perfectly good opportunity to gain EXP!_ Resolving to make up for the chance he threw away, Xandre stalked back the way he came, half chastising himself for his indescisiveness and half wondering how exactly the EXP made him more powerful. He hadn't yet faced a truly formidable enemy, so he didn't know if it indeed improved his chances in a true battle.

_I guess I'll find out eventually._

Xandre found the Whimsun flying through the air towards another room he hadn't visited yet. He followed it and came into a small chamber containing an elaborate stand and a sign.  _Monster Candy,_ the sign read, but the stand didn't hold anything. When Xandre touched the inside of it, though, his fingers came away slightly sticky, as if somebody had taken candy from here fairly recently.

_Strange,_ Xandre thought, not really thinking that much of it. The Whimsun was the reason he was here. He jumped at the flying monster, pulling it down toward the ground by one wing. He yanked the knife out of its sheath with his free hand and stabbed the Whimsun. As it died, Xandre told himself,  _no mercy from now on._


	17. Writers of History

_Memory_

They could all go free. They  _could._  Wing could really do it, give the monsters a chance at freedom.

But the price of freedom was steep.

The thought had been bothering Wing for months now. It had begun as a nagging speculation in the back of his mind, easily ignored, but not for long. As time wore on the thought grew into an idea, which grew into a plan…

_A terrible plan._

_Terrible,_ Wing reflected,  _but maybe, just maybe… worth it._

Wing loved all of monsterkind. He loved their kindness, their compassion, their dedication to one another. Not one of them deserved to be trapped in this underground hellhole to which they had been consigned millennia ago. Wing remembered the story that his father, Semi Serif, had told him when he was young, the tale passed down countless generations of monsters.  _The humans attacked our kind one day,_ Semi had said to Wing.  _Viciously and without mercy. They feared our ability to absorb their persistent souls, the souls that are both humanity's greatest strength and their most fundamental weakness. So they tried to wipe us out and take our souls. None were taken. The humans ignored our pleas and killed thousands of us._

And every time his father told him the story, Wing remembered asking, "why?"

Since the beginning of his life, Wing had the inquisitiveness of the scientist he would one day become, always searching for the answers to every question that puzzled him. It frustrated him that neither he nor his father could ever answer that one question.

"Why?"

Why were the humans so cold and heartless? How could they commit genocide without a second thought?

Yet now, decades later, Wing was at the other side of the conundrum, asking himself the opposite question.

 _How could_  I _?_

_Xandre_

Dust.

Dust, and his knife flashing in the dim light of the Ruins.

For Xandre, those were the only things that existed.

Since he was young he had been taught to be a hunter. Silent, stealthy, and relentless. He knew how to track animals over miles and literally kill two birds with a single stone. Now, here in the Underground, those skills helped him again: not to feed his family, but to increase the power of his soul as his EXP levels grew with every kill. Xandre padded without a sound, sure-footed, through the Ruins. He passed puzzles that were strangely deactivated. Maybe, if the puzzles mattered to him, he would stop to wonder why he didn't have to solve any of them, why there were vines curled around every switch to hold them down.

But by now, Xandre was getting tunnel vision. The single-mindedness had helped him many times in the wild as he narrowed his focus to only the animal he had to kill. It came to him like second nature. Everything about this came to him like second nature.

All that mattered was the hunt.

Little by little, his remorse vanished.

_Adrian_

_History is written by the victors,_  Adrian realized, suddenly feeling stupid for not thinking of it before.  _Of course that story of the monsters massacring us was fiction. If they really were strong enough to kill thousands of humans, there's no way just seven wizards would be able to subdue them and drive them underground._

_It was us. We were the murderers all along._

"My brother started a sock collection recently," Papyrus said when the two humans approached him, his random remark a world away from the darkness of Adrian's revelation. "How saddening. Sometimes I wonder what he would do if he didn't have such a cool guy taking care of him? Nyeh heh heh!"

When Nyssa and Adrian walked to the other XO puzzle a few meters away, Papyrus followed them.

"Humans! Hmm. How do I say this? You were taking longer than I expected to arrive, so I decided to improve this puzzle by arranging the snow to look more like my face." Now that Adrian paid attention to it, the snow arrangement did resemble Papyrus's face and skull in profile. "Unfortunately, the snow froze to the ground. Now the solution is different! And, as usual, my lazy brother is nowhere around. I suppose what I am trying to say is, worry not, humans! I, the great Papyrus, will solve this conundrum! Then we can all proceed! Meanwhile, feel free to try this puzzle yourself."

Nyssa and Adrian surveyed the puzzle and tried it from different angles. They discovered that once a tile was stepped on twice, it would turn into a green triangle that could not be changed back unless they pressed the button to reset everything.

"It's not possible," Adrian said after a while. "There's no path that could touch every shape only once."

"Wait!" Nyssa yelped. "Let me try something." She walked over the shapes in a new pattern. When she finished, she had covered all of them except for one, which Adrian quickly stepped on. They pressed the gray button, and the spikes retracted.

"Wow! You solved it," Papyrus gushed. "And you did it all without my help! Incredible! I'm impressed! You must care about puzzles as much as I do! Well, I'm sure you'll like the next puzzle, then!"

Papyrus ran off toward the next puzzle. When Adrian turned in that direction, he noticed that Sans was standing at the other side.

_What?_

_How did he get here?_

Uncharacteristically serious, Sans looked at Nyssa and Adrian. There was a new light in his eyes that almost terrified Adrian because of how far it was from his regular goofy demeanor.

"What?" Adrian said after a while, trying not to sound too confrontational.

Suddenly, the pinpricks of white light within Sans's eye sockets that were his pupils winked out. "Let's just get to the point. I have a strange feeling about you two," he said somewhat menacingly. "You're different from the other children who've fallen down here. I can feel it. I'm going to ask you right now… why?"

_Nyssa_

Nyssa resisted the urge to flinch under Sans's uncompromising gaze as she mentally debated whether or not she should tell him, and if so, how much.

"I know you're hiding something," Sans muttered. Nyssa was surprised at how intimidating she found the short skeleton. "If it has to do with us… well… if you know what is good for you, you will tell."

Nyssa quivered.  _If only you knew._

"So. Nothing from you, huh? Okay, then. I'm going to let you off this time. But if it turns out you've been hiding something that could put me or my brother in danger, let's just say that you're not going to like how it ends."

With that, Sans turned and walked away, leaving Nyssa and Adrian standing there thoroughly unsettled.

_Adrian_

"Let's keep going," Adrian said after a while. His heart still pounded rapidly in his chest. He'd been certain Sans would do something in order to forcefully draw the information out of him.

He and Nyssa exchanged a look. Neither of them dared say anything, in case Sans was listening somewhere nearby, but he knew they were now both terrified of Wing Gaster's eldest son. Adrian should've known that Sans's laziness was nothing but a facade the skeleton wore on the outside.

"Okay," Nyssa replied. She also sounded as if she were trying to make herself sound perfectly calm.

The two humans crossed a small wooden bridge that took them to another clearing. The ground seemed to be covered by a six-by-eight region of tiles, all in various shades of gray. Papyrus and Sans stood at the other side next to a strange machine. Adrian couldn't help but flinch when he saw Sans. When Sans met his eye, though, he gave him a carefree wink as if nothing had ever happened, which only served to scare him more.

"Hey! It's the humans!" Papyrus exclaimed. "You two are gonna love this puzzle! It was made by the great Dr. Alphys!"

Nyssa and Adrian couldn't help it. They exchanged a look.  _Dr. Alphys._  Both of them knew that name, and the monster attached to it, very well, although they had never met her in this life. When Wing's memories weren't with Helvetica or Semi, they were with Alphys, one of his closest friends and most trusted lab assistants.

"What?" Papyrus asked cluelessly, seeing the humans' expressions.

Adrian was sharply aware of Sans's gaze practically boring a hole through him. Sans must know, now, that something was very, very strange about the humans, and that it  _did_ have to do with him. He had known Alphys too, after all, and Adrian doubted many people here in Snowdin still remembered that. Least of all humans who had just fallen down days ago.

"Sorry. Must've confused 'Alphys' with someone else," Adrian lied lamely.

"Okay. Anyway! You see these tiles? Once I throw the switch on this machine, they will start to change color! Each color has a different function!" Papyrus proceeded to give a long, convoluted explanation of the puzzle rules. Adrian wasn't listening to all of it, since Papyrus's words were speeding by at a million miles per hour, but the gist of it was that red tiles were barriers, pink ones passable, yellow ones electricity, purple ones soap, and blue ones water.

Adrian didn't get it at all, really.

"Uh… could you repeat that?"

Papyrus attempted to repeat himself, mixing up some of the rules. This only made Adrian and Nyssa more confused.

"Ah, never mind! I'm leaving the instructions here!" Papyrus ran off, dragging his brother behind him. As he left with Papyrus, Sans turned and locked eyes with Adrian, making him shudder.

* * *


	18. Into the Darkness

_Nyssa_

"Okay."

"Okay."

The two humans stood there uncertainly, not sure what to do now.

After a while, Adrian dared speak his thoughts aloud. "Do you think Sans… knows?"

Instinctively, Nyssa flinched and looked around herself with wide eyes. She almost expected Sans to appear, glaring at her from empty eye sockets, from behind a rock or tree. When nothing happened, she worked up the nerve to speak as Adrian had. "I think so, at least to a limited degree. He knows something's up with us."

"We should tell him eventually."

"Yeah, we should," Nyssa replied, shivering as she remembered Sans's threat.  _Let's just say that you're not going to like how it ends._  The fact that terrified her the most was that she and Adrian had no idea of the true extent of Sans's power. By now it was clear that his laziness and humor were a disguise he hid behind for the benefit of his brother. What was he truly capable of? "I just don't know how to tell him without making him mad and… uh…"

"Causing us to meet a sticky end?"

"Precisely."

"Come on. We should keep going," Adrian pointed out. "There's more ahead of us, and we'd better get a start. It's going to get dark soon."

_Dark._

For some reason, that triggered the faintest wisp of a memory in the back of Nyssa's head. It frustrated her greatly when she struggled to grasp it. However hard she tried to recall it, she found nothing more than the nagging feeling that she was on the brink of something huge at the edge of her mind. She mentally saved it for later as she continued on through Snowdin with Adrian.

_Xandre_

As Xandre continued stalking his prey through the Ruins, the halls grew emptier and emptier, scores of monsters replaced by swirling dust as his EXP steadily grew. He could sense that there were still monsters left behind, but they hid from him, vanishing into nooks and crannies as he drew near. They must have had learned, now, that there was a hunter within the Ruins that had been their safe home for so long; a hunter out for their blood. And so they concealed themselves. Monster encounters were growing rarer and rarer, but that was all right, Xandre told himself.

He could be patient. He  _was_  patient, filled with a stone-cold calmness that made him feel as if he would wait a thousand years if he had to. Time didn't matter. The monsters couldn't hide forever. He imagined them finally daring to step out of their hiding holes and feeling the cold sting of death immediately after as his knife flashed through the air and claimed another life, reducing them to yet more dust.

By now, Xandre had the feeling it wasn't only his own willpower that urged him on. There was something else there, some unseen force, guiding him down the path he had chosen as the innate Determination in his soul twisted and warped into something darker.

_Adrian_

The fluffy white dog sculpting a cylinder out of snow was the first thing that caught Adrian's attention. Stranger yet, the dog appeared to be wearing his own tiny suit of metal armor. He yapped when he saw Adrian, but otherwise gave no indication of seeing the humans. Behind the dog, Adrian could see a small sentry booth. He and Nyssa approached it and looked inside. The dog's living space was a mess, with chew toys strewn across most of the floor and a box labelled "Pomeraisins" spilling out some sort of dried fruit.

A bovine monster leaned against a pile of snow at the far end of the area. He was wearing a purple button shirt with green designs and chewed on a nonexistent grass stalk, staring off into space with a bored expression. "That dog considers itself an artist, but it doesn't ever know what to create. It probably doesn't help that its brain is the size of a piece of kibble," he muttered with a roll of his eyes. The self-proclaimed artist dog carried on obliviously, absorbed in his endeavour to create the perfect snowdog.

"Cute dog," Nyssa commented.

"Mhm."

"I wonder how long he's been working on that…?"

"Who knows?"

When the humans crossed into the next area, having to shoulder through some spindly shrubs to do so, they found another XO puzzle strategically arranged among flat sections of ice. It was going to take a lot of precision to solve it.

"Uhh…"

"I'll go first," Adrian offered. He stepped onto the ice and immediately slipped, splaying out his hands to take the force of the fall.

"You okay?" Nyssa called.

"I'm… fine…" Adrian grunted. He awkwardly slip-crawled to the closest X and scrambled onto it, sighing in relief upon touching solid ground again. He looked around, attempting to determine which X he should go to next. By this point Nyssa had reached the same place after a similar episode of slipping.

"That one?"

"Yeah. Sure."

At one point, both of them slipped off the edge of the platform, landing into deep snow at some lower level. Adrian realized that he and Nyssa had ended up in some sort of hidden corner. The centerpiece of the space was a snow sculpture of Papyrus, complete with a red scarf around its neck. Next to it was a lump of snow with "Sans" written on it. Despite the current situation with the skeleton brothers–or one brother in particular, anyway–Adrian had to laugh, thinking about Sans's endearingly lazy side. Then he remembered the way his eyes had gone blank as he threatened them, and it sent a chill through him once again.

_Nyssa_

Nyssa and Adrian rounded a bend into a secluded area hemmed in by a nearly vertical rock face. Small cracks in the stone revealed the glowing eyes of creatures burrowing within. There was a sheer drop down the mountain opposite the rock face, but it was a good enough distance from Nyssa that she was unafraid of it. Hundreds of feet down, she could see more forest and a single log cabin nestled among the pines. The lights inside came on as she watched, and the tiny form of a monster emerged and walked outside. The wind, carrying more snow, gusted in her ears and swept the warmth away from her cheeks.

"There's a passageway over there," Adrian said, breaking the trance of Nyssa's thoughts. She followed his gaze and saw it. It wasn't particularly noticeable at first glance, just a crack in the rock, but when Nyssa strained her eyes she could detect the faintest of glows coming from inside. "Do you think we should look in there?"

Nyssa took a breath. "Okay. Let's do it. But if something nasty jumps out at us…"

"We run for our freaking lives."

"Right. Let's go."

The humans squeezed through the crack. The space beyond was almost pitch dark, with the mysterious glow ahead the only sign that they weren't going blindly deeper into a naturally formed cave. Each one of their footsteps reverberated endlessly even though the cavern was only just narrow enough for them to walk side by side. The transluscent blue substance beneath Nyssa's feet was neither stone nor ice; she bent down and brushed her fingers over it, finding that it had a smooth, glassy texture. So faint Nyssa could've been imagining them, she detected the whisperings of ghosts. She felt as if she were stepping into another world–no, another  _dimension._  Tiny pinpricks of light floated around Nyssa, making her think of fireflies with stars at their tails. When she reached for one, it hovered tantalizingly just too far for her to grasp, and she could've sworn she heard the stars' shimmering sigh. This cavern was different from any other place she'd seen in the world.

"What kind of place  _is_  this?" Adrian breathed.

"I don't know," Nyssa replied, equally mystified.

Finally, the passage widened and the ground underfoot changed to dark black grass with flecks of glowing cyan. Bioluminescent mushrooms sprouted from the floor and walls, the source of the glow they had been following. They bathed the chamber in their eldritch light. A simple wooden door, painted blue, marked the end of the passageway. Nyssa's heart sped in her chest when she saw what was engraved on it: a winged circle above three triangles. It was the very same crest the Lesser Dog bore on his shield and the symbol that adorned Toriel's dress.

_What does it mean?_

As Nyssa drew closer to the door, she knew she was in the presence of something much greater than herself, something unfathomably powerful. Something that had weaved the very universe from nothing. The source code of the world she lived in was separated from her by a mere slab of wood. She knew that if she had a way to enter the room, she would instantly see the answer to every question humankind had ever asked. Maybe, just maybe, she would even come face to face with whatever had created her, created Adrian and Wing and Sans and Toriel, brought everything into existence with its raw power.

Nyssa didn't need to try the door to know it was locked. Deep inside, she realized with a hard certainty that this was a door she would never open; whatever lay beyond it would remain hidden from her forever. Maybe that was for the best.

"We should go," Adrian whispered. Nyssa nodded agreement. This place was a sacred one, and she sensed that they were not meant to linger. In silence, they walked back the way they had come. She squinted and shaded her eyes as they emerged from the crack in the rock, back into the main cavern of the Underground.

She immediately wished they had stayed a little longer, because standing there and blocking their way was no other than Sans.


	19. Fighting Back

_Adrian_

As Sans's glare practically bored a hole through him, all Adrian could think about was how  _isolated_  this place was. If Sans did something to them, no one would witness it except for the burrowing animals within the rock face; nobody would know. There was no Papyrus, no Toriel, no anybody standing in his way. Adrian felt the primal thrill of fear surging through his veins, charging his body with a rush of adrenaline he knew wouldn't help him in the least if Sans were to attack.

"So." Somehow, Sans managed to infuse just that one syllable with ominousness. "I see you've found the Mysterious Door, haven't you?"

Adrian gulped.

"No, I have no idea what's behind it, same as you," said Sans. "But we all know that's not what I want to talk to you about."

_Xandre_

Xandre pursued a Loox into an hourglass-shaped room. After he made quick work of it, he looked up, surveying his surroundings. He'd gone deeper into the Ruins than he ever had before. Lying on the red leaves in front of him, pretending to sleep, was a ghost.

_Do I have to fight the ghost? Or is it already dead?_

As if it had heard his thoughts, the ghost levitated from its bed of leaves and fixed him with a stare. It immediately started to cry. Sensing vulnerability, Xandre pounced, only to be driven back by a barrage of magical tears.

"I see how it is," he muttered under his breath. To his satisfaction, the ghost did seem to weaken when he hit it. He told himself this was just a fight that would take a bit longer than most. Easily doable.

"I'm fine, thanks," the ghost whimpered as Xandre slashed across its immaterial body with his knife. It stared into the distance, starting to float aimlessly. "I wish I wasn't here," it whispered to itself. Xandre almost felt bad for the ghost, but just as the thought of sparing it crossed his mind, something pushed it away. It was almost as if some force beyond his control were driving him on. He knew it wouldn't allow him to diverge from this path until the very end, and there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

Finally, as the ghost lay on the ground gasping feebly, Xandre dealt what he was sure was the killing blow. Instead of dissolving into dust or even disappearing, the ghost rose uncomfortably. "Umm… you know you can't kill ghosts, right? We're sorta incorporeal and all. I was just lowering my HP because I didn't want to be rude… sorry… I just made this even more awkward… pretend you beat me…"

With a forlorn  _ooooooooooo,_ it faded away.

_Nyssa_

All of a sudden, a voice called out from behind Sans, and Nyssa heaved a huge internal sigh of relief when she realized it was was Papyrus.

"Hey! Bro!" the taller skeleton yelled. " _There_  you are! I need you to help me with a puzzle, lazybones!" When Papyrus saw the humans, he added, "you'll love it! Come  _on_ , Sans! You've been lazing around all day!"

"Says who? I've done a skele- _ton_  of work to help you today."

" _Sans!"_

"Come on, bro. You've gotta admit, that joke was  _humerus."_

"It was terrible,  _tibia_ honest!" Papyrus shot back. "Nyeh heh heh! Now come on!"

"All right, all right. Anything for you, bro," Sans chuckled. "Welp, I guess I'll see you two later."

Nyssa was still staring after the two skeletons when they turned the corner and vanished from sight. The way Sans's attitude changed like quicksilver whenever his brother was around scared her. Wing remembered that Sans was a loyal older brother, with Papyrus's interests at heart. That calmed Nyssa a bit. He was only keeping himself and his brother safe from what he thought might be a threat.

_Are we?_

_Adrian_

"Just a snow poff," Adrian muttered, kicking a lump of snow on the ground.

A small and lonely doghouse sat to the side of the clearing, almost as if it were squatting there waiting for something to happen. Adrian walked over and inspected it. There was a sign next to it that read:

_AWARE OF DOG_

_pleas pet dog_

Adrian and Nyssa wandered through the snow poffs, unsure what their purpose was. His eye suddenly caught a flash from beneath one of them, and he and Nyssa dug out 30 Gold. They split it evenly and pocketed it.

"I guess that's it for this place."

Right after Nyssa finished her sentence, they both heard a bark. The cream-colored head of a small dog nosed out of the nearest snow poff. At the same time, his tail poked out from the back. Adrian had to admit that he found the dog adorable. Just as he was thinking that, the dog rose impossibly from the snow poff, revealing a tall armor-clad body. He clutched a spear in one hand that had been fashioned with a tiny dog face on it.

_It's the Greater Dog,_  Adrian realized.

"Hey. Here, doggy!" Nyssa cooed. Adrian stood back. He had learned to trust her to deal with animals in situations like this. The Greater Dog ran towards her with his tongue lolling, flecking slobber at the humans' faces. Nyssa reached her hand out, just about to pet the dog, when he suddenly froze.

"Hey, boy. Are you okay?"

The dog did not respond. Instead, he cast a terrified glance behind him, whimpered, and immediately bolted with his tail between his legs. The battle vanished.

"Nyssa…?" Adrian stammered, pointing behind her with a quivering hand. Now he saw why even a member of the Royal Guard's Canine Unit had been frightened away. Nyssa whipped around and froze just like Greater Dog had once she saw who had scared him off. Pure terror gleamed in her blue eyes, as if she and Adrian were cornered prey.

"Hee hee hee," Flowey giggled. "You two really  _are_  idiots."

_Nyssa_

"What are  _you_  doing here?" Adrian snapped. Nyssa sensed the fragility of his false bravado.

"You see," Flowey chirped, still bouncing cheerfully from side to side to a beat only he could hear, "I couldn't just let you go off. Not now that you're together like this. After all, it wouldn't do for your little alliance to give you more Determination than your old friend Flowey here, would it?"

"Determination?" Nyssa asked. She had a faint memory of it from Wing. Although it hadn't yet come up in any specific memory she'd seen so far, Nyssa had the recollection of it being a red liquid extracted from souls but wasn't sure of anything beyond that, least of all its exact properties. She was hoping that she could get arrogant Flowey to reveal something more about it.

"Yeah, Determination. It's hilarious to watch how stupid you two are." The sentient flower chuckled. "Determination is a special power in your souls, of course! It gives you the power to rewind time and change fate. For years, that power was  _mine."_ Nyssa shuddered as Flowey's lip curled and his expression darkened to something crazed, psychopathic. "Then you came along, teamed up and  _took it away from me!"_ With that, Flowey summoned another ring of friendliness pellets. "You're not getting away this time," he remarked delightedly, grinning at the humans' fear. "No old goat lady to save you here. Oh, by the way, you're never going to see her again. My friend will make sure of that very soon." Flowey winked and made the pellets move closer and closer, slowly but surely. He knew was the cat, toying with the pair of mice Nyssa and Adrian were, so certain they would never get away from him. It sent a tremble of fear through Nyssa to know he was right. It was quickly replaced with another, unfamiliar feeling.

All of a sudden she felt a new power surging in her veins. She raised her hand and was surprised to see Adrian do it simultaneously, as if their minds were connected. A multitude of symbols shimmered into existence in the air around them, ranging from zodiac icons to ampersands to hand signs. Nyssa recognized the symbols immediately. They were the same ones that had spelled out Wing's name in the first memory she'd ever had from him. Now, the late Royal Scientist's memories gave the characters a name: Wingdings. Heart shapes blazed on the palms and backs of both the humans' hands, the same color as their souls–indigo for Nyssa, purple for Adrian. They glowed with power barely contained.

Flowey gawked. "What… how–"

Nyssa's hands moved in a sign language command that had been buried deep in her mind, muscle memory over seventeen years old. Somehow she understood what the sign language meant:  _defend._  Next to her, she was faintly aware of Adrian doing something similar, signing  _ensnare._  The symbols, obeying whatever commands they had given, flew outwards. Upon contact with a friendliness pellet, both Wingdings and pellet were annhilated in a small burst of white sparks. The rest surrounded Flowey, rendering him unable to move without touching one of the magical attacks and hurting himself.

"You're both idiots!" Flowey raged, attempting to break out of the trap.

Adrian made the symbols release Flowey abruptly. The flower flopped to the ground. "If you know what's good for you," Adrian growled, "you will not attempt to do that to us again."

With a final baleful glare, Flowey burrowed back down into the earth and was gone.

The fight over, all the magic faded as if it had never been there, indigo hearts fading from Nyssa's hands. It was only when she looked up that she realized Sans had been standing a few feet away the whole time, watching the fight. Her blood turned to ice.  _He saw us use his father's magical attacks. The Wingdings. The sign language. He saw everything._

Papyrus stood behind Sans and clenched his fist. For some reason, he looked simultaneously rattled and furious beyond words. "I thought he was my friend," he kept muttering to himself under his breath. For the first time Nyssa saw Papyrus angry. She didn't have time to think about why, though, because just then Sans spoke.

"Welp," Sans muttered. " _That_  happened. Time for a change of plans. I strongly suggest that you two come with us."


	20. Returning Home

_Adrian_

Sans did not speak as he and Papyrus escorted the humans to their house. He walked stiffly, jaw clenched. His expression clearly said  _no questions._

Adrian's head spun. What was Sans going to do to him and Nyssa? He had seen the two of them fight with his father's powers, confirming his suspicions that the two humans were keeping a secret related to his family. Whatever was about to happen, Adrian had a feeling it wouldn't be good.

Exiting the clearing with the snow poffs, the four of them approached a long, narrow rope bridge that didn't look anywhere near strong enough to support their weight. The ground dropped off as a sheer cliff; there was no other way across. Adrian, remembering the fear he'd felt when he looked down the hole to the Underground, felt his heart slam in his chest.

_We're going to have to go across that? At the same time?_

If it were any other situation, Adrian would probably have chickened out and gone back the way he came. But he couldn't turn back, not here. Sans stood next to the bridge, waiting for him to take the first step.

_I hate heights. No. No. NO._

Reminding himself that he had no choice, Adrian summoned a massive amount of willpower and put his weight on the first board. It creaked and swayed alarmingly. Immediately, Adrian grabbed the rope as tenaciously as if his life depended on it, which of course it did. Unfortunately this gave him a glimpse over the side. The rickety collection of boards and rope was the only thing suspending him over a hundred-meter drop. His pulse pounded loudly in his ears, and he had to force himself to breathe deeply so that he wouldn't throw up.

"You won't fall," Sans said gruffly from somewhere behind.

"O-okay," Adrian stammered. He picked himself up and forced himself to continue, not daring to look anywhere but at the boards under his feet. He made a wild leap when he saw the shimmering white snow on the other side and exhaled in relief when he landed there safely.

_Never again._

Nyssa, Sans, and Papyrus arrived shortly after. Sans took his place at the front of the procession wordlessly. Ahead, there were the warm orange glow of lights and the jingle of festive music. They passed a large sign ringed by twinkling, multicolored light bulbs:

_Welcome to Snowdin!_

It was only then that Adrian remembered the signpost providing directions to Snowdin Town that he and Nyssa had passed a while back. Beyond the sign, Adrian could see a cheerful-looking village composed of small log buildings all draped with fairy lights.

"Come on. In there," Sans said, gesturing at a small dome constructed with snow blocks. Adrian, Nyssa, and the skeletons found that they were standing on a square platform of snow. Without warning it started to move. Before Adrian even had time to react, it stopped, and Sans climbed out. The humans followed. Directly adjacent to the transport was a homely wood house with two floors and colorful strings of lights winding around the support pillars. Sans stepped towards the door, unlocked it with a key in his pocket, and gestured for the humans to enter.

_Nyssa_

So this was where the brothers had moved after their tenure in the Lab apartment ended.

The interior was surprisingly normal and not at all what she expected for the odd pair of skeletons. Wing's sons, she reminded herself. There was a plush green couch facing a television, a long and narrow wood dining table, and a book on a stand in the corner.

"You two should sit down," Sans said, patting the couch. His demeanor had shifted dramatically. Despite the circumstances he was the host now, it seemed, and the humans were his guests.  _If only he knew_ _he's treating us as guests in what's technically our own house,_  Nyssa thought.

"Do you want me to reheat some spaghetti?" Papyrus asked limply. His glumness struck Nyssa as a stark contrast to his usual extroverted exuberance.

"Uhh… maybe later, bro. Not hungry right now. Sorry."

"I'll be in my room," he muttered, trudging up the stairs.

"What happened?" Nyssa asked once she was sure Papyrus had gone out of earshot.

"I have no idea. I'll talk to him about it later." Sans sighed. "I really do hate it when Papyrus is sad. But you probably knew that already, don't you? Let's cut the crap here. I saw you fight Flowey. I only know one person with those powers, and he died seventeen years ago."

Nyssa sucked in a deep breath, working up her courage, and nodded. "Your father."

"Wing Din Gaster," Adrian contributed. "The Royal Scientist."

The look in Sans's eyes intensified. "And you have this info and his powers. How?"

Adrian and Nyssa exchanged a look. Best to just tell him now. "In the accident that killed him, he was shattered across space and time, and one third of his soul ended up inside each of us," Nyssa explained, wincing at how ridiculous she sounded. "I know it sounds crazy. But it's true. We remember things from his life, and now we can do things he could."

Sans's left eye flashed for a split second with blue and yellow light, and suddenly the two humans' souls were visible, hovering in front of them. Purple and indigo, each with a white third melded so seamlessly to the rest of the soul that it was hard to tell it wasn't supposed to be there. Sans took a deep breath, looked at the souls, and turned back to the humans. The expression on his face said everything they needed to know.

Before Nyssa could stop herself, she found herself telling Sans everything she remembered from Wing's life. She and Adrian were both breathless by the time they were done telling their tale. "We came down for answers," Adrian told him. "But now… I think our purpose is to do something else. To finish what Wing–your father–started, whatever that is."

Sans looked at the two of them. "You should stay a while," he said decisively.

_Xandre_

The Ruins were truly emptying out now, devoid of even the pattering steps of monsters hiding just beyond Xandre's peripheral vision. He walked his old routes one more time, weaving an intentionally convoluted path through the Ruins. He took care to pass the points where most of his monster encounters had happened.

But nobody came.

Xandre backtracked all the way to the long corridor Toriel had him walk down.

But nobody came.

Still refusing to believe he had really exterminated all the monsters of the Ruins, he pushed on into the region he hadn't explored yet, which was actually one room that shifted perspectives. All around him he glimpsed the debris of monster lives long gone: silvery dust that had been tracked everywhere in the Ruins by wandering creatures he had caught and killed, a pile of dead flies a Froggit must've been hoarding, the small clawed footprints of a pair of Loox walking side by side. Xandre tracked the Loox prints back to the place where they ended in a puff of dust, where he remembered killing them both with ease. He and his knife spared nobody.

He searched, pushing his tracking skills to the limit.

But nobody came.

Finally, he reached a branch in the path, and followed the straight way that took him to the balcony. The Ruins were laid out like a map below him. Had he not been the one to empty it, the abandoned city might even have seemed haunting for him. When he doubled back and went down the other path, the first thing he noticed was a gnarled black tree dominating the middle of a courtyard. Red leaves lay in heaps underneath it.

"There you are, child!" came a voice from up ahead. Toriel, ever the worrier, was running towards Xandre with her phone in hand and a glint of panic in her eyes. Looking him up and down, she smiled. "I'm sorry I had to leave you alone to fend off the monsters, but I see it was no issue, as you have not suffered a scratch. Impressive. Come on, now." She took Xandre's hand and led him to a house at the other side of the courtyard. "Welcome to my home, Xandre, dear. Hopefully, this house will belong to both of us now."

_Adrian_

Nyssa, Adrian, Sans and Papyrus sat around the dining table, a plate of spaghetti in front of each person. None of them so much as poked their food.

"Don't worry. Undyne came over yesterday and she made it, not Papyrus, so it's pretty edible," Sans teased, shooting his brother a playful look.

Papyrus just stared at his food as if he were trying to vaporize it and didn't respond.

"Hey, bro." Sans's voice softened. "You okay?"

"I really thought he was my friend. The flower."

"You know him?" Sans asked, suddenly alert. "When did you talk?"

"We've been meeting up for a while now," he confessed. "He was nice and friendly all the time. He gave me advice and suggestions. He listened to me talk about how much I wanted to be part of the Royal Guard." By this time, Papyrus had choked up and was covering his face with his hands. Adrian guessed he was crying. "He encouraged me when I felt bad about myself and acted like he really cared. I considered him my best friend, next to Undyne, of course. I didn't think he'd do… that."

Just like when he'd summoned the humans' souls, Sans's left eye lit up iridescent blue and yellow. "The rotten creature," he growled. "I'm going to make him pay for being so  _cruel–"_

"Sans," Nyssa said quietly.

Adrian sat silently in his chair, wondering how many people Flowey had hurt, betrayed, and backstabbed.  _Please don't let Toriel be next,_  he prayed, remembering what Flowey said. "You're never going to see her again."


	21. A Mysterious Character

_Xandre_

"Welcome home, young one! I promise I will keep you safe here."

As Toriel spoke, Xandre thought he could detect something different in her eyes. Was it apprehension? Did she know what he had done? Maybe not, since she was still willing to keep him safe in her home, but then  _what?_

"I have baked a butterscotch-cinnamon pie in order to celebrate. But we do not have to eat it now. You seem tired. Do you wish to sleep? You may take either of the first two rooms down the hall if you would like."

"Yeah, that would be nice. Thanks."

"Happy to help," Toriel said cheerfully. "I'll be in the living room if you need me." With that, she was gone, leaving Xandre to pick a room. He chose the one Nyssa had previously occupied, which of course he had no way of knowing. The abundance of children's belongings in the room immediately aroused Xandre's curiosity. Who had lived here before him? A bin of toys was placed at the foot of the bed which Xandre didn't find interesting. On top of a shelf populated by random objects like an empty soda can and several chocolate wrappers, there sat a single dusty photo frame containing no picture.  _What happened to that?_ Xandre wondered.  _Did somebody take it out? What is Toriel hiding?_

Among the other random things he found were a box of shoes in a disparity of sizes, old plush toys lined up on the bed, and a crayon drawing of a flower taped to the wall. Strangely, the bed seemed like it had been recently made. The covers were brand new and crisp white.

_Weird…_

What Xandre found in the wardrobe was even more interesting: an assortment of striped clothes, ranging in size from that of an eleven-year-old to a late teen. They all seemed to belong to a boy with a stockier build than Xandre.  _Monster,_  he summarized.  _Probably the same type as Toriel._

Slipping on a set of night clothes that fit him, Xandre lay down in the bed. It would be good to get some decent rest while he could. The other reason whispered in the back of his mind: he wanted to postpone the inevitable. He knew that after exterminating the monsters that lived here, there was only one more to kill, and he quietly dreaded it. He let the welcome emptiness of sleep take his thoughts away, at least temporarily.

Moments later, Xandre opened his eyes to find only darkness, stretching on as far as he could see–or rather,  _couldn't_  see.

"Who's there?" he yelled out. The dark gave no answer. Xandre took a breath and forced himself to think about what was happening. He must have been dreaming; if so, could he will himself back into the waking world, as he had been able to do since he was young? His panic began to envelop him with every failed attempt. This was a dream, a figment of his unconscious mind, yet something more powerful than himself was keeping him there.

Xandre heard a footstep behind him and whipped around. He was still blind, unable to see anything except blackness and his own body. It felt surreal. Wrong. Another footstep sounded out from an entirely different direction and he twitched towards it, heart pounding.

"Xandre."

He didn't hear the voice. It resonated within his mind and sent chills down his spine. He couldn't place it exactly, although it sounded vaguely like a teenaged female. "Who are you," Xandre demanded into the emptiness in front of him, "and how do you know my name?"

This time, the voice sounded as if it were whispering in his ear. "Turn… around."

Nearly petrified with terror, Xandre turned. There was a girl standing there with him, and  _he could see her_  as clearly as he could see himself, and they were the only two figures standing there in the infinite dark. The girl had brown hair hanging down to her shoulders, bangs trimmed in an even line across her forehead, and rosy cheeks. She looked at him with russet-colored, almond-shaped eyes. Xandre noticed the curve of the girl's hips, unlike a child, and the fact that she was only a little shorter than he was. Definitely a teenager, despite the softness in her features. The clothes she was wearing, a green shirt with a broad yellow stripe across it matched with brown shorts, were clearly handmade. Almost everything about her gave off an aura of childish innocence. When she smiled, though, Xandre could see something darker in her eyes.

"Who are you?" Xandre asked, weakly.

"Greetings. My name is Chara."

_Nyssa_

The pasta was a food much more refined than any Nyssa had eaten in her life, besides Toriel's butterscotch pie. Back home in the village, their regular fare had been much simpler. They'd certainly lacked the cooking technology the monsters had access to.

 _The village._ It surprised Nyssa when she remembered she hadn't even thought about home since she first fell down with Adrian. When she left, winter had already begun approaching, curling its icy fingers possessively over every tree branch and drop of water. Prey was starting to retreat farther into the wilderness and plants would begin to die soon. How were the villagers doing?

Something, though, made Nyssa feel detached from where she had come from, as if it didn't matter to her as much as it should have.  _It doesn't,_  she realized.  _I didn't come from the village I lived in. The Surface, even. I was a monster from the Underground, the son of a man named Semi and a woman named Calibri, and the father of the two skeletons whose home I'm staying in right now._

The realization shook her. The place where she had grown up was not her home, not even close. Everything she had known up until now was wrong.

"Uh…" Nyssa began.

"Wait," Sans told her. He turned to Papyrus. "Hey, bro, do you mind going upstairs for a sec? The humans and I have some… things to discuss. Maybe get ready for bed?" Papyrus gave Sans a look and wouldn't move until Sans sighed and added, "I'll come up and read you your bedtime story later, 'kay? I'll be there. I promise."  
"Right," Papyrus replied, satisfied. He headed upstairs alone. All three who remained waited until Papyrus was certainly out of earshot before attempting to break the stillness that had settled over them.

"How are things since we, uh, left?" Adrian asked awkwardly. Nyssa noted his usage of the "we" pronoun. "Semi? Helvetica?"

For a while, everyone was quiet again, and Nyssa was sharply aware of the way something in Sans's expression shifted a little again. "Grandpa Semi lives a little farther into Snowdin Town. I'm planning to visit him tomorrow, actually. Our mother… she's…" he shot a nervous look upstairs towards where Papyrus was. "Gone."

"Oh," Nyssa said quietly, grasping his meaning immediately. A pang of remembered grief surged through her body as Wing's memory of losing the love of his life came to her. "I'm sorry."

"She was a good person," Sans said simply.

The three of them sat in somewhat uncomfortable silence until Sans added, "do you mind spending the night here? It's getting late, and it'll be hard for you two to find shelter. Unless you want to stay at Snowed Inn, which is fine too. You should both come with me to Grandpa Semi's house to untangle this… unforeseen complication."  
"We don't mind staying," the humans replied at the same time.

"Well, that's settled, then."

There was another silence.

"Um. I'll try to figure out the room arrangements, in that case." Before anyone had a chance to object, Sans jumped out of his chair and rushed off. Nyssa sensed his eagerness to escape the intensely awkward last few minutes, and she heaved what she hoped was a small and unnoticeable sigh of relief as the tension was relieved without Sans in the room.

Letting her mind wander to other things while she waited for Sans to come back, she couldn't stop herself from wondering just how different things would've been if Flowey hadn't attacked them. Then she realized neither she nor Adrian had brought up the elephant in the room when they'd talked to Sans. The other third, the boy with the black hair they'd had a vision of. Where was he now? He must've been in the Ruins, being taken care of by Toriel. Or  _was_  he? What if Flowey had gotten to him? And speaking of Flowey, there was the extra matter of the "friend" he'd talked about while they fought him. Of course, Flowey could easily be bluffing, but somehow Nyssa doubted it.

 _What if,_  Nyssa thought with horror,  _Flowey and I were actually thinking of the same person?_

_Xandre_

"C… Chara?"

"Yes," Chara replied. "It is good to finally meet you. Ever since you brought me back, I've been waiting to become substantial enough to appear in your dreams."

"What? What do you mean, brought you back?"

"I'm not technically  _alive,_  Xandre," Chara admitted. "Your power is what reawakened me. Your determination, EXP and LV are sustaining my existence."

"Who… no,  _what…_  are you, exactly?"

"I am the First Human," she explained. "The first of our kind to fall into the Underground after the monsters were trapped down here."

"But how… how did you die? Who killed you? What happened?" Xandre blurted.

"That information is for me to know," Chara replied enigmatically.

Xandre accepted this and sat down on the invisible ground. Chara followed, settling beside him in one fluid motion. Her unexpected closeness sent a surge of electricity through Xandre and made him wonder whether he should come closer or discreetly move away from the mysterious girl.

"We should have a conversation," she said. "There is a lot that must be said between us, I think."

"Yes, there certainly is," Xandre breathed.

_Memory_

Around the time the CORE was nearing completion, Helvetica became very ill. The sickness started so ordinarily, no one thought it would pose any kind of threat. Wing and Sans believed she would get better after a week at most.

She didn't.

As the days passed, she only grew sicker, until finally she was too weak even to leave her bed. Wing was worried to death about his wife at this point. Sometimes, after both Sans and Papyrus had gone to sleep, he would go to her room and hold her hand. "Stay determined," he would tell her. "Hold on for us. You can't let go now."

In the day, Wing tried to be reassuring, putting on the mask of strong and responsible Royal Scientist for the sake of his sons. But it became harder and harder to hide his panic as Helvetica's condition grew worse.

"Dad," Papyrus asked Wing once, "why is Mom so sleepy all the time now? She never gets out of bed anymore."

Wing looked at his one-year-old son, too heartbroken for words. He was so naive, so innocent. He knew nothing of mortality or disease.

"Your mom will get better," Wing said, praying with all of his heart for it to be true. "We just need to wait, and help her become strong again."

Sans looked like some of his spirit had been drained out of him. Since his mother got sick, he hadn't laughed or played as happily as he had before. Helvetica's sickness had dampened the entire family's mood. King Asgore sent doctors, but even they couldn't do any more than keep her comfortable and lessen the pain. The misery continued on, heavy and stifling, until one fateful night.

"Wing…" Helvetica called weakly.

"I'm here!" Wing cried, rushing to his wife's bedside. "What is it, Helvetica?"

At first, Helvetica didn't say anything. Something was missing from her. She reached for him and he took her hand. "What is it?" he asked again.

Helvetica let out a small cough. "Wing… I can't stay anymore."

"You must stay strong," Wing begged, struggling to stop himself choking on his words. He couldn't believe it. "I will be here with you. We can get through this together." All of a sudden, he was terrified. "I need you… Sans and Papyrus need you, too. You can't let go now."

Wing had always known in the deepest corner of his mind that this was bound to happen one day. But today?  _No._ It was far too soon. It wasn't  _right._ As if she'd read his mind, Helvetica whispered, "entropy, Wing… unpredictability. Things will take their course. Life is a story with unexpected turns. I am so sorry, so sorry…"

"No."

Wing clung on to his wife's hand as she grasped at the last, fading tendrils of life. He could almost sense it, her drive to live on for him, for the family they created of their own blood. Her will was enormous, her determination unshakable, yet it wasn't enough. Slowly, her eyelids closed, and as her body relaxed, she started to dissolve into sparkling white dust.

In his grief and anguish, Wing didn't notice that his cries had brought Sans running. As soon as the young skeleton saw what had happened, he froze.

"Mom…?"

_Xandre_

"How interesting," Chara remarked, intrigued. Xandre gave a start when he realized that Chara had been moving closer and closer to him as the memory played out to the point that they were nearly touching.  _What in the_ world  _is she playing at?_

"Wait," Xandre sputtered. "You saw that?"

"Yes," she replied with a mysterious smile. "Now, I wonder, however do you remember  _that?_  If I remember correctly, that woman's name is 'Helvetica'. I heard that name plenty of times after I fell down, as well as the other one… oh, yes. ' _Wing Gaster'."_

 _I guess there's no hiding it now,_  Xandre thought, resigned. Besides, something told him to tell Chara about the situation. He sensed an opportunity. For what, he wasn't sure yet, but he now knew that this girl would become a key player in this game soon.

"It's complicated," he began.


	22. Loose Ends

_Nyssa_

Nyssa awoke from the dream with tears misting her eyes, her heart heavy with the grief Wing had once felt a lifetime away. The magical sky of the Underground was just beginning to lighten outside the window. With a start, Nyssa realized that Adrian had already been awake for a few minutes at least. He sat in the corner reading a quantum physics book that had clearly come off the round stand next to the couch.

Banging footsteps coming down the stairs alerted Nyssa to Papyrus's entrance. Sans trailed lazily after his brother with his head lolling as if he were struggling just to remain awake. Both brothers were dressed for the day, though Sans's hoodie and shorts seemed rumpled, as if he'd slept in them.

When he made eye contact with Nyssa, Sans jolted visibly. She guessed that he had suddenly remembered the events of the previous day.

"Oh, right," he said. "We're visiting Grandpa Semi today. Welp. This is going to be awkward."

_Xandre_

"It's true," Chara breathed. Somehow, she had summoned Xandre's soul and was now looking on with awe, eyes wide when she took in the flawless fusion of human and monster, blue and white. "That's… that's amazing."

_And beautiful, in a twisted way._

"So you have  _all_  his memories?" Chara asked him incredulously.

"I don't remember all of them right away, but sometimes they come to me, like that one with Helvetica," Xandre explained. "I see his two children, his parents, his wife, and his lab assistant. The orange lizard. I think her name was Alphys…?"

"Yes, I remember her. I fell down quite a while after the Royal Scientist disappeared, and it took a long time to decide on a new one, but King Asgore–" Chara's voice softened when she said Asgore's name almost tenderly, and Xandre wondered what it meant– "finally made a decision and appointed Alphys a few months before I died."

After what had felt like hours with Chara, Xandre felt himself being pulled back into wakefulness. Chara and her world, which seemed to entirely consist of a black void, were starting to become a little blurry at the edges. He could feel his grip on this place slowly slipping.

Chara was still talking, saying something about flowers that he was finding harder and harder to hear. "I think I'm waking up," he told her. Only then did he realize how close together the two of them had become during the course of their conversation, even more so than when they had watched Wing's memory unfold. Their arms and legs were close enough to be brushing against each other if either of them moved an inch. It sent another thrill through Xandre's body and he struggled to suppress it.

As though she had also just noticed, Chara looked at their touching arms and shuffled away slightly. Her cheeks flushed the tiniest bit pinker than usual. "Until next time, then," she said, clearly trying to pretend nothing had happened. Xandre just had time to give her a nod before she vanished from view and the interior of Toriel's house materialized around him.

_Adrian_

Wanting to get it out of the way, Sans decided to take the humans to visit his grandfather early in the day.

"Are you sure he won't mind?" Adrian asked.

"Oh, he won't once he knows what's up with you," Sans promised. It wasn't the most reassuring statement ever, and Adrian found himself excessively nervous in anticipation of the first time he'd see Wing's father in his human life. Explaining the situation to his sons had been awkward enough. Adrian and Nyssa followed Sans tensely, letting him navigate the streets of Snowdin Town. Next to them, Papyrus chattered away about how excited he was to tell his grandfather how close he was to being part of the Royal Guard.

Adrian was all too aware of the way the monsters of Snowdin stopped whatever they were doing and stared at him as he walked past. Did they realize he was a human? Surely they wouldn't dare attack him, due to Sans's proximity, but what  _were_  they willing to do? He pretended not to notice their stares.

Semi's house was unremarkable, one wooden abode among many nestled between the orderly rows and columns of Snowdin Town. Nothing distinguished it apart from a dusty holiday wreath hung forlornly above the door frame. Sans walked up to the door and knocked three times. The monster who pushed it open was an old skeleton with features similar to both Wing's and Sans's, unmistakably family. His face was smiling, although clearly visible in his eyes was the anguish of a parent who had outlived his child.

"It's so good to see you again," he greeted Sans and Papyrus warmly. Only then did he realize the humans were standing behind him, fidgeting awkwardly. His eye sockets widened in surprise. "Humans? I haven't seen any in a long, long time. Sans, you didn't tell me about these two. What happened?"

"I brought them with me so I could tell you," Sans explained. "Be warned, it's a little far-fetched, and…" he trailed off. "It's about Dad."

"Oh." Semi's gaze grew even more pained, if that were possible. "Come in, then. I sense that this will take a while."

_Nyssa_

After Nyssa, Adrian, and Sans had explained the situation, Papyrus fooling about in the kitchen in the meantime, Semi frowned. Underreacting. Nyssa sensed that he was, by now, nothing but resigned to the death of his only son and didn't believe them deep inside. When the true meaning of their words impacted later, things would be different for him.

"Well, then," he said simply, looking at their two souls. "You remember me? All of us?"

"Yes," Nyssa replied.

Semi heaved a sigh. "I truly wish I could've apologized to him."

This grabbed Nyssa's attention. "I don't remember anything about that. What happened?"  
"It happened right before his death," Semi began, and Nyssa got the feeling that if they didn't have this peculiar relationship with Wing, Semi would never have told anyone a word. Now, the old monster seemed relieved to finally be able to get it off his chest. "Wing and I fought. Both of us should have seen it coming. It began when he was first chosen to replace Cambria Neue as Royal Scientist. Back when her predecessor had just passed on, Cambria and I were both candidates to replace him. Asgore's father, the king at the time, chose her over me. I didn't find it fair, and I began to resent Cambria for it, even though I knew she had done nothing to warrant my hatred. She died my bitterest enemy, though I did not tell anyone this, least of all Wing."

He took another deep breath, as if to steel himself, before pushing on. "When he was chosen, succeeding where I had failed, before falling in  _love_  with Cambria's daughter of all people… it became too much. I tried to be happy for him. I truly did. But nothing except jealousy registered. The last time Wing and I saw each other, the day before he went into the CORE and never came back out, my anger finally escaped and I took it out on him. Now I'll never have a chance to make amends."

A wave of raw emotion, both Wing's and her own, engulfed Nyssa. She felt a lump form in her throat and swallowed hard.

"I know it sounds mawkish, but it is true that there is nothing I wouldn't give to tell my son I'm more sorry than I could ever express. I daresay he was the best Royal Scientist monsterkind has ever seen, more brilliant and selfless than I could ever be. I want him to know that he has made his father proud thousands of times over."

When Semi was finally done telling his tale, he slumped back down, seeming almost as if he were crumpling in on himself. Sans moved closer and lay a bony hand on his grandfather's shoulder. "The past is in the past," he murmured.

Nyssa longed to comfort Semi but couldn't find the words. How could she console a grieving father when she herself held a shard of his child's soul inside of her? There was nothing she could say to make anything better; nothing she could do to reverse what had already happened. She settled for silence. Papyrus, blissfully ignorant, continued to mess around with spaghetti in the kitchen. He still thought Nyssa and Adrian were only friends and nothing more. It hurt her to think that eventually, she, Adrian, and Sans would have no choice but to take that innocence away from him by unmasking the truth he should have known long ago.

_Xandre_

"Good morning, child!" Toriel said to Xandre with a smile. "Did you sleep well?"

_Oh, if only you knew,_  Xandre thought.

"Well enough," he said instead. Looking back into Toriel's motherly gaze, he felt guilt tear through his heart. She had been nothing but kind to him, yet in time, he would have to bite the hand that fed him. Toriel was full of her own secrets, that was clear, and before he ended her, Xandre would make sure he uncovered some of what she kept hidden. He sensed she bore some connection to Chara, the mysterious ghost of a girl who dwelled in the void of his dreams, which he didn't yet understand.

Xandre almost pitied Toriel, knowing that the kindly goat monster had no idea trusting him was the worst decision she would ever make in her life.


	23. Number Seventeen

_Adrian_

"My treat," Sans told the humans and his brother with a wink, pushing open the door of Grillby's Bar and Restaurant.

"Hiya, Sansy," a rabbit monster mumbled in an attempt to sound flirtatious, half slumped over the table at her booth with several empty glasses next to her. She tried to stand up but wobbled on her feet and plopped back into her seat with a giggle. Clearly wasted. Next to her, a monster whose huge, toothy mouth took up most of his face chomped away at what once might've been a basket of fries. All the canine members of the Royal Guard clustered around a round table in the corner, watching Lesser Dog play a card game against himself.

At the counter, a red bird slouched against the back of his seat, fiddling with something. Sans, Papyrus, Nyssa, and Adrian took a row of seats near the bird. A door behind the counter swung open and Grillby emerged, wiping a glass with a dishcloth. He seemed to be a humanoid figure composed entirely of flame. Inexplicably, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses hovered in the air in front of where his eyes would be without melting.

"That guy is...  _hot._ I mean that literally, by the way," Nyssa remarked. Adrian nodded agreement, feeling waves of warmth radiate off Grillby's flame despite the distance between them. Sans chuckled.

"Hey, Grillby," he greeted the bartender. The flame monster responded only with a nod, and Adrian wondered if he was mute, being made of fire and having no mouth.

As soon as Adrian sat down on the bar stool Sans offered him, a loud fart resonated through the restaurant, and the monsters eating there jerked their heads away from their food and stared, wide-eyed. Adrian reddened. "That wasn't me!"

"Watch where you sit," Sans smirked. "Sometimes–" he reached over to Adrian's chair and pulled out a deflated pink cushion– "weirdos put whoopee cushions on seats."

Adrian rolled his eyes playfully, although he knew Sans could see the humor in his expression.

_Nyssa_

Back at Sans's house, Nyssa and Adrian sat next to Sans on the couch. Papyrus had gone upstairs and was now doing who knew what in his room, as had become his custom every time Sans pulled the humans aside for a private conversation.

"I think it's about time I showed you something," Sans said after a while. He stood up and gestured for the humans to follow him. "Come." With that, he was off, climbing the stairs to the second floor. Nyssa trailed him uncertainly. They passed the door to Papyrus's room, which was decorated with numerous signs ("NO GIRLS ALLOWED. NO BOYS ALLOWED. PAPYRUS ALLOWED.") and arrived at the unmarked door at the end of the hall. What looked like colored flames, morphing in color from red to yellow to green to red again, licked at the floor from under the door frame.

Unaffected by the fire at his feet, Sans opened the door and allowed Nyssa and Adrian to enter before him. He closed the door behind them with a  _click._ Whatever this was going to be, Sans clearly didn't want Papyrus to be any part of it.

In one corner of Sans's room, Nyssa noticed what seemed to be a self-sustaining trash tornado, and did a double take when she realized that there was a tiny white dog there, sound asleep despite his swirling around in the vortex. Among the other unusual contents of his room were a pile of dirty socks, a thank-you note addressed to "Santa", a mattress with covers wadded up on top, and a treadmill that had a piece of paper with "the truth is that you got owned, nerd" written on it leaning against the side.

"I haven't told anybody about this, not even Papyrus, so you'd better not spill to a single soul," Sans warned, then added, "no pun intended" as if to lighten the mood. He went over to his drawer, rummaged around inside and extracted a single silver key.

"This is the key to my basement workshop," he told them. "In case... you want to learn more about the life you left behind. Do you want to see it?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go." On their way out, Sans opened the door of Papyrus's room a crack and yelled, "hey bro, I'm going to go out for a while, 'kay? Take care of yourself."

Papyrus gave a single "Nyeh" in response before going back to whatever he was doing.

Something about that simple exchange opened a void in Nyssa's heart.

It wasn't fair, how quickly Wing's death had forced Sans to grow up. Even now, he was still a child by monster standards, a child overburdened by the worries and responsibilities of an adult long before his time. It wasn't fair that he'd lost both parents out of sheer misfortune. Wasn't fair that he had to play the father to his own brother. Wasn't fair that the Gasters, once a family of five living at the top of monster society, had been cut down to three who could barely provide for themselves.

_It's not fair._

Behind the house, Sans jammed the key into the keyhole of a door that looked like it hadn't been opened in a long time. With a grunt of effort, he got the door open, and descended down a flight of steps into a dark basement. After Nyssa and Adrian were both inside, Sans flipped on a light.

The workshop was small, but it had been practically designed to make the most of the meager basement space. A rectangular object covered in a heavy purple tarp occupied one corner. Along the wall, the top of a row of drawers doubled as a desk. A blueprint unrolled across it caught Nyssa's eye first. Everything was labelled in perfect Wingdings that cost Nyssa no effort at all to read. Mesmerized, Nyssa traced Wing's handwriting with one finger, the neatly printed symbols a mere relic of her past life.

Something occurred to her just then, and she turned to Sans. "Sans? Do you have a paper and pencil?"

With a nod, the skeleton fished in his pockets, tossing her a ball of wadded parchment and a pencil that seemed to be nearly split down the middle. It would do. Nyssa spread the paper out flat on the desk and put the pencil up against it. Her hand moved of its own accord, once again following patterns that had been rutted into her brain long ago. Wingdings flowed from her pencil like the most natural thing in the world.

Even in an act as simple as writing, Nyssa felt herself as not only one but two beings working in tandem, each movement of her body guided by the remaining slivers of consciousness embedded deep in her mind. He lent his memories to her, taught her the glyphs and starbursts of his language.

Undeniably, he was there–he was a part of her–he  _was_  her.

The spell faded as quickly as it had taken over her as she finished the last line of text, although she could still feel Wing's consciousness there, intertwined with her own. It immediately went to work again helping her read what she–no, what  _he'd_  written. In all capital letters, words blended into one another, no spaces or paragraphing in between, almost as if they had come in a rush.

_ENTRYNUMBERSEVENTEENDARKDARKERYETDARKERTHEDARKNESSKEEPSGROWINGTHESHADOWSCUTTINGDEEPERPHOTONREADINGSNEGATIVETHISNEXTEXPERIMENTSEEMSVERYVERYINTERESTINGWHATDOYOUTWOTHINK_

Something about it chilled Nyssa to the bone in a way she could not understand. She was about to show Sans when something stopped her, led her to crumple the paper back up and tuck it in her pack.  _This isn't for him to see._ _Not now._

Together, Adrian and Sans had been going through each of the drawers, laying what they found onto the desk. A badge, a photo album, a stack of notes written entirely in Wingdings by two different people (they could've been lab notes or love notes; Nyssa couldn't really tell just by reading the few words she could make out), several capped syringes, and a vial of red liquid that bore a vague resemblance to human blood. It was labelled with the letters "DT" in thick black marker.

"My last dose of Determination. I almost forgot about that," Sans murmured in wonder, holding the vial up to the light. "Alphys… the experiments with the human souls…"

This caught Nyssa's attention immediately. "Sorry, what was that?"

"It's a long story," Sans sighed, "one that I might tell you later if you don't find it out yourselves. Anyhow, not for now."

"What exactly  _is_  this Determination stuff, though?"

"Using the blueprints on that desk, we built the DT Extractor Machine and used it to extract Determination from the human souls Asgore had," Sans explained. "With enough of it, a being might have the power to control the very fabric timelines are made of by saving and reloading time with so-called SAVE points. It's the strength of human souls as a physical substance. The will to live. The power to change fate. "

"Purified and distilled into liquid form," Adrian breathed, wide-eyed.

"Exactly," replied Sans. Screwing off the cap of the bottle, he let a single crimson droplet fall onto his finger and sucked it off. "Too large a dose has… extremely detrimental effects on monster bodies. Because we are composed mostly of magic instead of water like you are, we can only handle a tiny amount at a time."

"What happens when a monster gets too much?" Nyssa asked, morbidly curious.

"Bad things," Sans replied, his eyes going dark once again. Nyssa decided to leave the subject alone.

_Xandre_

Alone in his room, Xandre rummaged through the drawers and checked every article of clothing, convinced his search would lead him to some conclusion about Chara. None of the random items strewn about in the room gave him any leads. Resolving to check more later, he decided to do his snooping elsewhere in the house.

Xandre stuck his head out of the room and gave a cautious glance both down the hall and at the sitting room. Toriel relaxed in her reading chair, engrossed in a book detailing uses for snails. As long as he didn't draw her attention, she wouldn't look up any time soon. Xandre crept across the hall and ducked into Toriel's bedroom.

The color scheme of her room was radically different from that of his, soft blues and greens instead of the reds he'd gotten used to. Beside Toriel's desk was what he thought was a regular old bucket until he took a closer look and found that it was full of snails. Her desk chair was labelled "Chairiel". Laying open on Toriel's desk was a diary.

Xandre couldn't help but feel filthy as he drew closer to read what was written on it. He was invading Toriel's privacy big-time.  _It's not going to matter,_  he thought to himself ruefully.  _She won't be alive to mind it._

_Why did the skeleton want a friend?_  A circled entry in the diary read.  _Because he was feeling bonely!_

The rest of the page was covered in jokes of a similar caliber.

Toriel's bed was not quite small enough for just one person, and a pot of golden flowers–the only non-blue items in this room–squatted on top of her bookshelf nearby. The bookshelf itself was stocked with encyclopedias of underground flora and fauna, several manuals on how to teach children, a large number of parenting books, and volumes upon volumes about snails. The side of the bookshelf, Xandre noticed with curiosity, was covered in crayon scribbles that were partially wiped off. They reminded him of the sloppy flower drawing in his room. Clearly, children had been here before, and many of them at that. At the same time, maybe?

Could Chara have been one of them?

A sudden thought occurred to him, and Xandre ran back to his room as quietly as he could without alerting Toriel. The flower drawing. Of course. He used his fingernails to pick at the tape attaching it to the wall until he could peel it free. There, on the backside of the drawing, were the signatures of two small children.

_Asriel Dreemurr,_ the top one read. Underneath it, in a girl's handwriting, was a name much more familiar to him.  _Chara Dreemurr._

_Nyssa_

That night, it was Nyssa's turn to sleep on the couch while Adrian took a mat on the opposite end of the living room. Pillows obscured her from his point of view. Even so, she waited until he sounded asleep before she dared turn on the lamp a fraction. Keeping her movements slow and steady, she opened her pack and pulled out the piece of paper she'd written on before. The same Wingdings text greeted her, looking more like mad scrawlings than coherent text.

_ENTRYNUMBERSEVENTEEN_ _DARKDARKERYETDARKER–_

_Dark..._  yes, now she knew why thinking about the darkening sky had struck some chord in her. It had reminded her, or Wing, of this particular entry. The same entry he had written with her hands.

She'd seen this before. These words, in sequence, were eerily familiar.

But why?


	24. Clairvoyance

_Memory_

The lapping of water echoed chaotically off the stone walls of the chamber, amplifying tens of times. Wing could just barely hear the faint swishing of his own robe over the dissonance as he approached the bank of the underground river. A lonely boat floated in the water. Most of it was plain-looking, seemingly carved from a single piece of wood. The figurehead above its bow was the face of an animal difficult to identify. Dog? Cat?

A figure stood alone on the boat, wordlessly watching Wing approach. It was garbed in a blue cloak that obscured its entire body and had a hood shadowing its face. There was no way to tell who or what it was.

"Royal Scientist," it greeted him guardedly, its voice neither masculine nor feminine. "You came."

"I need a ride to Hotland," Wing replied curtly. "We are discussing no additional matters."

Although the River Person made no move to stop him, Wing could almost swear it was glowering at him from beneath its hood as he boarded the boat. "You are dangerous," it hissed as it reluctantly began rowing. Wisely, Wing said nothing to that.

"Nothing truly good could ever come from a scientist like you. I sense it."

Wing continued to give River Person the silent treatment, praying it would just  _shut up._

"You would do anything, wouldn't you? Anything, just so you could observe and analyze the result. You would sacrifice thousands of lives for the chance that your experiment could succeed, even if the odds bordered zero."

Wing froze. Did it know? Surely, it couldn't… he had taken care to hide the blueprints well, and even if somebody had found them, they wouldn't be able to read the Wingdings it was written in. Besides, he had never put down in words what he actually planned to do with it. Could somebody have gotten into the secret room? It was growing increasingly difficult to stay silent as River Person talked, that was for sure.

"You tell yourself it's for their good, but deep inside, you just want to know what will happen if you do it…"

"Stop it," Wing interrupted, holding up one skeletal hand. It seemed less likely now that River Person would know, but it was unwittingly getting far too close for comfort. No matter how hard he tried to block its words out, they slipped through the chinks in his shield and nagged at his soul. Wing found himself thinking darkly,  _what if River Person is right?_

_Nyssa_

Of course, Sans was oblivious to what the humans had seen in their dreams the night before.

"You two should get going," he suggested. "There's a lot more for you to do down here–I wouldn't want my bro and I to hold you back."

"All right," Nyssa replied uncertainly. "We can leave…"

"Wait. Before you leave. I feel as if you should have this."

Sans reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out the vial of Determination. He placed it in Nyssa's hand before she had time to object.

"Sans–"

"Take it. It's not like I'll be needing it any time soon."

Reluctantly, Nyssa pocketed the vial.

"By the way, where's Papyrus?"  
Sans shrugged. "Dunno. He'll be pretty bummed you're leaving, though. I'll let him know when he turns up."

"Well… we'll see you," Adrian said awkwardly as Nyssa followed him to the door.

"Don't die," Sans replied, only half joking.

As soon as the humans pushed open the door, a gust of icy wind slapped Nyssa in the face. Snowdin, it seemed, was sending them off. Together, she and Adrian walked along the lonely path that led out of Snowdin into whatever awaited them next. The snow intensified around them until everything vanished in a blizzard of white.

Ahead of them, there was the crunching of boots, and a shadowed figure emerged into the open. Nyssa recognized the tall form of Sans's brother.

"Humans," Papyrus said. "Allow me to tell you about some complex feelings. Feelings like the joy of finding fellow pasta lovers. The admiration for another's puzzle-solving skills. The desire to have a cool, smart person think you are cool. You must be having these feelings right now! I can hardly imagine what it would be like to feel that way. After all, I am very great. I don't often wonder what having lots of friends would be like. I pity you, lonely humans. Worry not! You shall be lonely no longer! I, the great Papyrus, will be your… no… this is all wrong! I can't be your friend. You are humans who must be captured. Then, I can fullfil my lifelong dream. Powerful! Popular! Prestigious! That's Papyrus, the newest member of the Royal Guard!"

Without warning, color drained from the world, and even the snow seemed to abate, parting around them as if clearing the stage for the fight. Papyrus stood across from them on the plain of snow as if it really were a battlefield. Nyssa's and Adrian's souls hovered in between them, and Nyssa wondered how Papyrus would feel if he knew who those white shards had once been.

_Adrian_

Adrian exchanged a look with Nyssa, and in that one glance, an unspoken agreement passed between them.  _We don't use Wing's powers._  They knew Papyrus well enough by now to know he was too kind to ever truly harm them.

But they, the humans, could accidentally harm  _him,_  even without using magic. Their souls were far too powerful to be a fair match to his, and there was no way they would risk hurting him. Adrian realized that this was the first time he had thought of this. It was something to do with the fact that Papyrus was Wing's own son, he guessed. Even from beyond the grave, Wing was protecting him.

"Papyrus," Adrian tried, "why do we have to do this? Haven't we been nothing but friends all this time?"

"So you don't want to fight," Papyrus mused. "Then let's see if you can handle my fabled 'blue attack'!"

The skeleton, looking proud of himself and cockier than Adrian had ever seen him before, unleashed an onslaught of blue bones. Nyssa and Adrian didn't have to do anything but stand still in order to avoid being hurt. Adrian looked at Nyssa, not sure whether he should laugh or cry.  _This_  was Papyrus's attack? If so, this "battle" would be easy to the point of pity-inducing…

Thinking that, Adrian was in no way prepared for the sudden increase in gravity. It was as if all the blood in his veins had turned into lead, weighing him down. It was so unexpected that he collapsed to his knees. Next to him, Nyssa yelped and fell in synchronicity, splaying out her hands to catch herself.

"What… was that?" she panted.

Only then did Adrian noticed that his soul was no longer the vibrant purple he was used to. Instead, it was indigo, like Nyssa's was all the time, and for once it was affected by gravity just like Adrian himself. What did this mean?

A bone came at them from the side before Adrian even had time to stagger to his feet. It sent pain through him as soon as it struck his soul.

"You're blue now," Papyrus pointed out. "That's my attack. Nyeh heh heh!"

_Xandre_

_Time to put an end to her,_  Xandre thought, peering around a corner at Toriel reading in her chair. She was just a caring, maternal monster who had never hurt anyone. The former queen of the monsters in no way deserved death, but Xandre would have to force it on her anyway in this cold pursuit of knowledge.

For him, this was nothing but one big test. An experiment.

He'd become exactly the kind of scientist River Person had feared.


	25. Dying Flames

_Nyssa_

Adrian gasped, holding his side, breathing heavily. Nyssa passed him a cinnamon bun she had purchased from the Snowdin store before putting her hands up. "Papyrus, we told you, we don't want to fight you. We just want to be friends."

"F-friends?" Papyrus hesitated. "But I can't be your  _friend!_ I can't! I must capture you! Only then will Undyne be able to see how great I am! After that, my dream will come true, and I will finally become a Royal Guardsman! I'll be popular! People will notice me–and people will  _love_  me!" He stared sadly at the snow under his boots in a rare quiet moment. "So you see, humans, although I would very much like to be friends with you, I cannot."

Nyssa could almost sense the conflict that must be raging in Papyrus's mind. He was hopelessly torn between a chance at the fulfillment of his lifelong dream and the friendship of the very humans he had been told to capture.

"Hey, Papyrus," Nyssa said quietly, "come on, now. Fighting isn't the way to do this."

Papyrus fell silent again, bracing himself.

And forced himself to send another barrage of attacks towards the humans.

_Xandre_

"Oh, hello!" Toriel greeted Xandre, looking up at him over the tops of her reading glasses. "Did you want to know about the book I am reading? It is called '72 Uses for Snails'. How about an interesting snail fact?" Before Xandre had a chance to interject, Toriel continued on, almost desperately. "Did you know that snails had a chainsaw-like tongue called a radula?"

"Toriel–"

"Um, I want you to know how happy I am to have someone else here," Toriel said quickly, once again silencing Xandre before he could talk. He could tell she was frantically stalling for time.

_She won't be able to keep this up forever._

"There are so many old books I want to share. I want to show you my favorite bug-hunting spot. I have also prepared a curriculum for your education. This may come as a surprise to you, but I have always wanted to be a teacher." Toriel looked wistfully into the distance. Into the future she longed to have, maybe, or the distant past she had lived? "Maybe one day. When all this is over. I adore children, and I would love nothing more than to start my own school someday." The former monster queen smiled fondly, and Xandre imagined her visualizing herself in front of a blackboard, gazing at the open, smiling faces of a classroom full of students.

Xandre bit his lip and said nothing.

"Ahh, never mind. The point is, I am glad to have you living here."

He waited. Toriel, finding no other things to say, finally gave a resigned sigh and said, "sorry about that. Did you want something?"

"I'm going to leave the Ruins," Xandre replied. He was careful to make it a statement. Not a question.

"I know I should have done it sooner," Toriel muttered under her breath. Turning back to Xandre, she said sternly, "I have to do something I should have done long ago. Please, wait here, and do not move until I get back." She got up from her chair and walked briskly towards the basement stairs, her movements stiff. It was the first time Xandre had seen this austere side of her.

Naturally, he followed, his heart pounding. This was it. He really was going to do it.

_Nyssa_

As the short bone came at her, Nyssa jumped, which took an extra effort thanks to the newfound weight in her soul. It was so heavy, it felt as if she had suddenly been transported onto the surface of Jupiter. To her surprise, she floated up much higher than she ever could have naturally, and drifted back down in slow motion, unharmed. Adrian landed on his feet next to her and exhaled slowly, preparing for the next jump.

_We're getting the hang of this,_  Nyssa thought with relief.

"Papyrus," Adrian said in mock disdain, clearly trying a new strategy, "you think you're so great? Wrong! There's about as much skill behind your battle moves as there is flavor in your spaghetti! That's none, by the way. Ha!"

"How selfless!" Papyrus remarked, instead of looking hurt at all. "You want me to feel better about fighting you!" Sadly, he added, "I don't deserve such hospitality from you…"

Another attack came, each bone higher than the last. "How high can you jump?" Papyrus challenged. He seemed to be having a hard time trying to keep it cool. Nyssa just barely cleared the highest obstacle. She felt it graze the soles of her feet, and let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in when she landed softly back on the snow.

"Don't make me use my special attack," Papyrus warned.

Nyssa and Adrian met eyes.  _Special attack?_

"I can almost taste my future popularity," he sighed wistfully, rattling his bones as he casually sent another wave of attacks surging towards the humans. The last bone was blue, which caught Nyssa off guard. She was just sighing in relief from managing to stay still long enough to dodge it when another, smaller white bone came out of nowhere, striking both her and Adrian.

"Hey! Not cool!" Adrian yelled out indignantly.

"Papyrus: Head of the Royal Guard!" the skeleton crowed. Although he was present in front of the humans, it was clear his head was way in the clouds, as if he had already attained the popularity he had long dreamed of. "Papyrus: unrivalled… spaghettore!"

"Wait… what?"

"Undyne will be  _really_  proud of me!" Papyrus continued. He prepared a non-bone attack, before realizing his mistake and spending a minute fixing it before sending it the humans' way. They dodged it instinctively. "You saw nothing," he muttered conspirationally, trying to direct attention away from the mist of pink spreading across his cheekbones. "The king will trim a hedge in the shape of my smile! My brother… Well… my brother won't change much. I'll have lots of admirers, but..." he hesitated. "How will I tell if people really like me? Someone like you two is really rare…"

His attacks were becoming far harder to dodge now, changing height as they passed. Nyssa dodged them frantically, holding on to the hope that Papyrus would see reason soon.

"I don't think they'll let you go… after you're captured and sent away…" he frowned, seriously considering his options. "Urgh… who cares? Just give up! Give up or face my special attack! Yeah… very soon, I'll use my special attack!"

Knowing his pattern, Nyssa held still as the blue bone approached, before jumping just a little higher than normal to dodge the regular one so that she would land in time for the next blue bone to pass through her. She and Adrian were getting good at this.

_Adrian_

"This is your last chance," Papyrus warned in an attempt to sound threatening, "before my special attack!"

The attack he sent out was the same as all the previous ones, which made it easy for Adrian to dodge–it was practically muscle memory by now, as deeply ingrained as Wing's sign language. "Nyeh heh heh," Papyrus whispered. As the humans' turn ended, he spread his arms dramatically. "Behold: my special attack!"

Adrian waited, muscles tensed.

Nothing happened… until a tiny white dog appeared out of the swirling snow with a bone in its mouth. It yapped and settled contentedly, a ball of white fluff indistinguishable from the snow underfoot, in a corner of the battle rectangle.

"What the heck!" Papyrus yelled. "That's my Special Attack!"

The dog ignored him, almost smugly. It carried on gnawing on the bone.

"Hey, you stupid dog! Stop munching on that bone!"

Giving Papyrus a final look, the dog scooted backwards out of the rectangle with his special attack firmly clamped between its jaws. Tail twitching, it whirled around and trundled off into the snow.

"What are you doing? Come back here with my special attack!"

The dog wagged its bottom at Papyrus before vanishing. "Oh, well. I'll just use a really cool regular attack!"

White bones came in full force from all directions. Adrian twisted and ducked midair to dodge them and was shocked when he landed unscathed. The words "cool dude" followed, along with a bone wearing sunglasses… on a skateboard? After a while, though, Papyrus's attacks started coming with less vigor than they had before, and his posture sagged.

"Well…! Huff… It's clear you can't… huff! Defeat me! Y-yeah! I can see you shaking in your boots! Therefore I, the great Papyrus, elect to grant you pity! I will spare you, humans. Now is your chance to accept my mercy."

_Xandre_

_Mercy._

The word was almost foreign to Xandre now, an abstract jumble of letters–or Wingdings–that meant next to nothing.  _Mercy_  would only hinder him and distract him from his purpose.

Wing's memories told Xandre that Toriel was a boss monster, her essence tied to her children. Since any children Toriel had ever had were clearly long gone, she could have lived indefinitely, remaining ageless and deathless to walk the halls of the Ruins forever. Frozen in amber, until by some miracle she and her race were freed.

No wonder Toriel was so content to stay where she was, at least for now. She literally had all the time in the world.

_At least, she thinks she does._ For a moment, Xandre wondered if by doing this he was indeed saving Toriel from some worse fate, an infinite sentence to the Ruins. Everlasting house arrest. Deep inside, though, he knew he was just trying to give himself a reasonable explanation for his actions.

He realized that he was about to do something he had never done before: He would bring about the death of an immortal.

_This,_  he reflected,  _is the power in my hands. You think you have an eternity to live, Toriel. How incredibly wrong you are._

Even while thinking this, Xandre couldn't help but wonder if Toriel knew somehow, just by looking at him, that her life had reached its final chapter. She would never start her own school or watch her beloved students grow up. The things she truly believed she would someday be able to do.

Before Xandre had a chance to change his mind, he strode into the final chamber where Toriel stood, ready to fight in the last battle of her life.

_Nyssa_

"Nyoo hoo hoo… I can't even stop someone as weak as you… Undyne's going to be disappointed in me. I'll never join the Royal Guard, and my friend quantity will remain stagnant!"

"Hey, Papyrus," Nyssa said gently. "It doesn't have to. Let's be friends."

"Really?" Papyrus gushed, perking up immediately. " _You_  want to be friends with  _me?_  Well, then… I guess I can make an allowance for you!" To himself, he added, "wow! I have friends! And who knew that all I needed to make them was to give people awful puzzles and then fight them? You taught me a lot, humans. I thereby grant you permission to pass through! And I'll give you directions to the Surface. Continue forward until you reach the end of the cavern. Then, when you reach the capital, cross the barrier. That's the magical seal trapping us all underground."

Nyssa just stopped herself from saying,  _we know, and we'll free you from it, just like your father once tried to._

"Anything can enter through it, but nothing can exit except for a being with a powerful soul. Like you! That's why the king wants to acquire a human. He wants to open the barrier with soul power. Then us monsters can finally return to the surface! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you… to reach the exit, you will have to pass through the King's castle. The king of all monsters… well, he's…" Papyrus paused ominously, then said with a laugh, "a big fuzzy pushover! Everybody loves that guy. I'm sure he'll even guide you to the barrier himself. Anyway, that's enough talking. I'll be back at home being a cool friend. Feel free to come by and hang out!"  
"Actually… we need to be on our way soon," Adrian told him.

"Well… I suppose I can make an allowance for that too, but never forget that you now owe the great Papyrus a hangout! Nyeh heh heh!"

_Xandre_

"Prove to me. Prove to me that you are strong enough to survive."

Xandre looked up and locked eyes with Toriel as she sent magical fireballs flying toward him. He dodged on instinct and came up unscathed, surprising even himself. Some part of him had fought powerful, magical enemies before. Some part of him. More specifically, one third.

There was no way Xandre could have stood a chance of beating someone as powerful as Toriel was on his own. But somehow the white part of his soul knew how, and it were almost straining to take control, as if it hungered to release its potential. So he let it. The next time Toriel attacked him, he was ready for it. He dropped and rolled, and as he was coming to his feet, he raised one hand. Wingdings symbols materialized around him. Cyan hearts blazed in the palms of his hands as he summoned the magical powers that had lain dormant within him. Until now.

Before Toriel could dodge, Xandre signed a command. The symbols flew at Toriel and struck her all at the same time. Letting out a gasp of anguish and agony combined, she fell to her knees, and Xandre could see a large patch of red blooming on the front of her dress. It stained the emblem she wore there.

"I… didn't know you hated me that much…" she choked out.

Xandre shoved back the wave of emotion that threatened to swamp him. He'd done it. There was no going back now.

"Now I know who I was protecting when I tried to keep you here," Toriel rasped. "Not you… but  _them."_ She glared into Xandre's eyes with such fierce intensity, he almost wanted to flinch. "Ha… ha…"

She tried to say something more, but nothing would come out of her throat.

Before long her body dissolved into dust. Her soul–the same white color as his one third, Xandre noticed–lingered for a moment more before it cracked in half. The pieces fell to the ground and vanished. A powerful feeling started to build inside Xandre, one he'd grown to know well as the gaining of EXP.

Xandre, a mere human, had done it. Toriel was dead. All that remained of the once-powerful monster queen was a fine mist of white powder settling onto her dress like the snow that fell beyond the door of the Ruins, extinguishing her eternal flame forever.


	26. Echo

_Adrian_

No one else tried to stop the humans on their way to Waterfall. The snow-covered evergreens standing sentry by the path and the white crystals that glimmered under their feet took on a still, almost eerie quality. Holding their breath, it seemed, waiting.

Waiting.

For what?

Ahead of them, the path tapered to what was hardly more than a narrow land bridge. As Nyssa and Adrian crossed it, they could feel the cold slowly fading from the air, replaced by a muggy humidity that clung to their clothes and skin and hair. From somewhere up ahead came a steady crashing.

In this new section of the Underground, Snowdin's sedimentary rock gave way to deep blue stone, carved in wave patterns as if to imitate the ripples of water. Small crystals that glimmered from their places embedded in the walls, like stars in a midnight sky, gave off the only luminescence visible as the humans left the magical light of Snowdin behind them. A large ice cube, thrown by the muscular wolf the humans had long passed, drifted downstream alongside them on the way to its final destination, wherever that was.

Farther down the path, waterfalls cascaded down from stone shelves high above, dampening Nyssa and Adrian's clothes in their spray. Adrian shrugged off the thick jacket he had been wearing since they had first entered Snowdin; he wouldn't be needing it anymore. The scent of Toriel's house still clung to it, woven into its fibers. As he put the jacket back into his pack, Adrian could almost swear he could still feel the warmth of her fur against him as she hugged him goodbye.

 _Goodbye, Toriel,_  Adrian thought silently. He thought of her still in the Ruins, silently mourning the loss of two more children. But maybe she wasn't so alone anymore. The third human was keeping her company, surely. Adrian wondered how Toriel could stand it, taking in child after child when every single one had left her behind. There was something broken in her life. Missing. He had sensed it when he stayed with her and he still thought about it now. One day, he hoped–maybe after the monsters were all freed–Toriel would finally be able to find her peace.

_Xandre_

Xandre stood still for the longest time, breathing heavily, trying to recollect himself. All the while his eyes never left the place where Toriel had made her last stand. It was strange how a monster so strong, so powerful, so  _eternal,_  could so easily be reduced to dust.

_Reduced to dust, by my doing._

The soul marks on Xandre's hands and the Wingdings he had summoned faded rapidly as soon as Toriel died, becoming invisible again, awaiting the next time he would draw upon Wing's powers to take another life. Something Wing himself had been about to do before his own creation killed him.

Wing's dark side, the one he had tried to suppress all his first life, seemed to react to the kill, a feeling creeping into the edge of Xandre's mind that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Relief? Anger? Guilt? Triumph? Or just a cold curiosity that drove him to find out more?

 _I will,_  he promised.

_Nyssa_

After a while, the narrow passage widened into a chamber occupied by two monsters the humans didn't know, a glowing blue flower, and Sans. He sat with his feet propped up against a sentry booth, which Nyssa noticed had a layer of fresh snow on the roof even though there was none of it coming from anywhere in Waterfall.

"Sans? How–"

Nyssa grinned and shook her head at Adrian jokingly. "Sans has his mysteries," she replied cryptically.

There was a chuckle from the sentry booth. "You've got that right," the skeleton called back at them. "Now, care to join me?"

As the humans walked over, the orange half-fish monster next to the flower waved to get their attention, casting a fleeting glance at the flower as if he were afraid it would interrupt him before he could speak. "This is an Echo Flower," he blurted as soon as he saw that the humans were looking at him, giving the flower a look of triumph. "It repeats the last thing it heard, over and over…"

When Nyssa approached the flower and touched it, it gave an uncanny imitation of the monster, repeating his message verbatim. It was enough to send a small shiver down her spine.

"Hey, yo!" The smaller yellow monster, who had been silent until now, called out. He seemed to be a child, standing only slightly taller than Nyssa's waist height, and wore a striped shirt on his armless torso. He had small spines down his back, reminding Nyssa a little of Alphys. She had the feeling she had seen him frolicking in Snowdin Town the day before. "You guys! Are you both sneaking out to see her, too?"

"'Her'?"

"Yeah, her! Undyne! She's the coolest, right? I want to be just like her when I grow up. Don't tell my parents I'm here, though. Ha."

"We won't," Adrian replied uncertainly.

"And you, Sans?" Nyssa asked, ignoring the snow on the roof of the sentry booth as if she saw randomly placed weather phenomena every day. "What are you doing here?"

Sans shrugged nonchalantly. "Haven't you seen a guy with two jobs before? Fortunately, two jobs means twice as many legally-required breaks."

Nyssa laughed. "That's not  _quite_  how it works on the Surface, but okay, I guess."

"Hey, anyway… I know this is a bit of a random question, but what do you think of my brother?"

"He's cool," Adrian replied with a shrug. "And nice."

 _Why is he asking this when he realizes we've known Papyrus since he was born?_  Nyssa wondered to herself.  _Whatever, this is interesting._

"Yeah. Papyrus tries real hard. Like how he keeps trying to be a part of the Royal Guard. One day, he went to Undyne's house, since she's the head of the whole thing, and begged her to let him be in it. Of course, she shut the door on him because it was midnight. But the next day, she woke up and saw him still standing there, waiting for her. Seeing his dedication, she agreed to give him a chance at warrior training. As you can see, it's still, uh, a work in progress. But he's getting there."

"I can see that," Nyssa replied, smiling. Was it strange, the feeling of pride that filled her from the inside? The sense of accomplishment as if Papyrus's achievements were worth even more to her than her own? This, she realized, must be how Wing would have felt towards his sons. He was proud of his children, both Sans and Papyrus. So proud.

"I'm proud of him, too," Sans said, as if he could read her thoughts. "He's come a long way since… the beginning." He paused, and Nyssa knew he must be reliving the day Wing died, when their family broke apart.

"Yes," Nyssa agreed. "He certainly has."

_Xandre_

As Xandre went over what to do next, he walked back up the stairs into Toriel's vacant house in hopes of finding supplies that would keep him alive during the journey ahead. The place seemed so hollow without her, so lifeless. Xandre wondered what would happen to any other humans who would fall into the Underground afterwards, now that he had killed their guardian angel.

 _Maybe there won't be any more monsters by the time someone else falls down,_  he mused. He supposed that was what he was going to make sure of after he left the silent Ruins behind him. Go into the rest of the Underground and kill all of them until there were none left, no survivors to tell his tale. Once again, he marveled at the power that had been given him as soon as he fell, the power that seemed to come from the white shard embedded in his soul. The  _will_ power to take this path.

He could sense that Wing had been trying to convince himself he had it in order to carry out his plan. Had he lived, maybe he still wouldn't have been able to bring himself to really do it, sure. But in the moments before his death, he really had thought he would be forced to commit genocide in order to eventually open the barrier. Kill the monsters of an alternate universe in order to free those of his own. The logic and the plan made sense, in a terrifying, twisted way.

When the CORE malfunctioned, Wing had died, but the darkness in his soul had not. Why else would Xandre be standing here alone, surrounded by the emptiness and the weight of all the lives he had taken?

_Adrian_

After depositing their items in a conveniently placed box, Adrian and Nyssa found themselves face-to-face with a massive waterfall that bisected the path they had been following, leaving no way to the other side but through the churning water. Worse, stones tumbled down the waterfall along with the cascading water.

"We're going to have to risk it," Adrian muttered. His eyes followed each boulder as it fell, vainly attempting to make out some regularity, some sort of pattern, in the way they came down. Giving up, he chose a time when there did not seem to be many rocks falling, and yelled, "now!"

Hurling caution to the wind, Adrian and Nyssa broke into a full-on sprint, spluttering as the water soaked their clothes and bogged them down. Their eyes remained fixed on the far bank. All that mattered was getting safely to the other side.

Pain blazed in a straight line down Adrian's arm, and he yelled, diving to the side. On instinct, Nyssa followed him.

"Ow," he moaned, clutching the part where the rough stone had grazed his skin. Luckily, it didn't seem to be bleeding, although it was scraped red and raw enough for it to make Adrian grit his teeth so he wouldn't cry out.

Looking up, he realized he and Nyssa had ended up in a dry cavern in the stone. The waterfall thundered on beyond their safe cove, only narrowly missing where the two of them crouched in between two patches of luminescent mushrooms. Adrian shifted his hand and realized that it had been pressed against a mess of sparkling pink fabric wadded up on the ground.

"Hey, what  _is_  this?"

Nyssa crawled on hands and knees to where Adrian sat and picked up the bundle, shaking it out. "It's a tutu," she said in disbelief, "and a small child's at that. How in the world did this get here?"

That was when Adrian noticed the dark stains smudged against the deep blue stone of the cave. They had been there a long time, and had had years and years to dry out, but it was still unmistakable what they were. Nyssa, following his gaze, saw them immediately and froze.

_Nyssa_

"Blood." Nyssa swallowed hard.

"Do you think–"

"There is something very, very wrong about this place," Nyssa breathed. Clearly, somebody had been killed here. Taking a closer look at the tutu, she realized that faint red patches marred its silky pink, as if somebody had come by here a long time ago and tried to wash the blood off of it.

On the wall, something caught her eye: a hastily carved heart shape, painted indigo. As if it were a marker of some sort.

Adrian picked up a sharp-edged stone from the ground and scraped it against the wall, leaving a lighter streak in its wake. There, he scratched three symbols: a sun, a hand, and a pointed flag.  _RIP._

"I have no idea what happened here," Nyssa whispered almost reverently, feeling as if she and Adrian were intruders treading upon a sacred tomb. She traced the indigo heart on the wall with one finger. Apart from the fact that it was wholly human, the carving was identical in appearance to her soul. "But whoever this is, whoever this  _was…_  I wish she'd made it to wherever she was going."

Adrian sighed. "Me, too."

_Adrian_

Without warning, clanking footsteps sounded out from a ledge above, accompanied by the creaking of armor.

"There's somebody here!" Adrian whisper-yelled, stating the obvious. He and Nyssa ducked into a large clump of tall grass. There they crouched, tilting their heads up to catch a glimpse of the ledge while hopefully remaining unseen. Somebody clad in silver armor with what seemed like a red ponytail streaming out behind her stood facing another figure. Although his face was in shadow, Adrian easily recognized Papyrus's tall, skeletal frame.

"H… hi, Undyne! I'm here with my daily report. Regarding those humans I called you about earlier…"

"Did you fight them?" the female monster, Undyne, interjected briskly. Even her voice was sharp and loud, commanding of respect.

"Y-yes! Of course I did! I fought them, ah, valiantly!"

"Did you capture them?" Undyne interrupted again. Her tone heavily implied how rhetorical her question was, and Adrian knew what she was really asking was,  _why do you not have two human souls with you right now?_

"W-well…" Papyrus fumbled over his own words, staring very hard at the ground to avoid Undyne's challenging gaze. "No," he finally admitted, letting out a defeated sigh. "I tried very hard, Undyne, but in the end, I failed."

"Then I will take their souls myself," Undyne snapped.

"But Undyne, you don't h-have to destroy them!" Papyrus cried, moving closer to Undyne. "You see…"

She turned around to glare at him, and he began to back away, weak-kneed. "You see…"

"Papyrus."

"Y-yes?"

"Do you not remember what I have been trying to tell you this entire time? Humans are our enemies. They do not deserve the gift of mercy. I know your heart is in the right place, I really do. But protecting  _humans_  will not get monsters anywhere, nor will it improve your chances of being deemed worthy to be a member of the Royal Guard. Understand?"

"I understand," Papyrus replied, resigned. "I… I'll help you in any way I can."

With that, Papyrus left.  _Please leave,_  Adrian prayed, watching Undyne warily. Sure enough, she made a move to turn in the other direction. Adrian's hand slipped, shifting a piece of grass the slightest bit. He bit back a curse.

Undyne whipped around. "Who's there?" she demanded. Her eyes, two glowing pinpricks just visible under the visor of her helmet, fixated on him as she advanced towards the humans' hiding place.


	27. Plans

_Nyssa_

Nyssa and Adrian crouched helplessly in the sea grass as death stood over them in a suit of glinting armor, a long blue spear materializing in her hand. It crackled with magical energy that lanced across it from one end to another, making it appear as if Undyne were holding a bolt of lightning. She cast her blazing glare about her, but it was clear she was not entirely sure whether there was really anybody in the grass, and that gave Nyssa hope.

For the longest time, the three held in their tableau: the hunter above, her prey below. Nyssa's heartbeat was loud in her ears, sending blood rushing throughout her body, ready to help her flee for her life. Not that running would give her any more of a chance against the most powerful warrior in the Underground and her arsenal of energy spears.

 _Please,_  she prayed,  _do not let this be how it ends._

All through their journey in the Underground, Nyssa had known she and Adrian were the monsters' quarry, left with no choice but to fend for their lives. Only now, though, did this truly come to light. All the monsters they had encountered before had presented no true danger to their lives. But Undyne could, and would, kill them both without a shred of remorse.

Although Nyssa's survival instinct screamed at her to bolt from the scene as quickly as possible, icy terror brought perfect stillness to her body. Death was close, yes. The smallest twitch of a hand would be enough to alert Undyne to her and Adrian's presence, and that would be the end. Death was close, but not certain like it would be if she decided to run.

Finally, after what felt for all the world like just a day more than an eternity, Undyne's wiry muscles relaxed and she took a reluctant step back, still hefting her spear. She whipped around wordlessly and strode out of sight.

_Xandre_

What was it that prevented Xandre from moving on?

He had cleared his path. Blazed a trail through the Ruins, leaving monster ashes in his wake. Even Toriel, the guardian of this empty city, had not been able to put up a fight. So why did he hesitate so much to move on to the next area of the Underground? Xandre told himself it was the promise of food and clothing in Toriel's vacant house, a luxury he would no longer have once he pushed through the gateway into whatever lay beyond. But deep inside, he felt it; something more. Even this far down his path, something whispered for him to turn back.

 _No,_  he told it fiercely.

_Adrian_

Nyssa and Adrian waited still in the grass for a count of one hundred after Undyne left, unwilling to believe the danger had truly passed. She was gone for now, yes, but she would be back. She knew there were humans in the Underground, and both Nyssa and Adrian knew she would not rest until she hunted them down.

"Let's go," Adrian dared to whisper after a while. The two tentatively straightened from their crouched positions and crept out of the sea grass. Not a shadow stirred on the ledge above. Just as they were beginning to exhale gratefully, there was a rustle, and they only had time to whip around in alarm before something burst out of the grass behind them.

"Run–" Adrian began to yell, before he fully registered what exactly had come up behind them. It certainly was not Undyne with her blazing spears. Instead, it was a small yellow monster child in a striped shirt, the same one they had encountered in Snowdin Town and the first room of Waterfall.

"Yo, did you guys see the way she was staring at you?" the monster kid gushed. "That was  _awesome!_ I'm  _so_  jealous! What'd you do to get her attention?" he snickered weakly. "C'mon. Let's go watch her beat up some bad guys."

Without waiting for any kind of response, he dashed away. He had not gotten more than four feet from where he had started when he tripped, his cheek hitting the blue stone ground. Adrian was about to call out to him when he got back up, shook himself off, and continued on his gleeful sprint as if nothing had happened.

"Wow," Nyssa commented after a while. "That kid really doesn't realize, does he?"

"Not a chance," Adrian agreed.

"Well, he seems to be the only one," Nyssa said dryly. "He really thinks we're just monsters, like him."

"Well…" Adrian mused, thinking about the shards of Wing's soul inside both of them. "Aren't we, though?"

_Nyssa_

Nyssa kneeled by the water, allowing the final Bridge Seed to fall from her hands into the water. It drifted into place beside the other three she had already placed, and as if they were in a time-lapse video, all four buds opened. Their petals stretched upwards and undulated, blooming in fast motion, until Nyssa had before her a row of four enormous flowers. Each petal was colored blue closest to the flower's center, fading into a soft pink.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Nyssa worried, eyeing the flowers. They were large, each one almost as wide across as she was tall, but they didn't exactly seem the most stable. Adrian gripped her hand to offer support as she tentatively stepped onto the first blossom. It held.

"Let's go across one by one, just in case," Nyssa warned, already beginning to step over to the next bridge flower. Once they had both passed, they proceeded into the next room. Water blocked the way to a tunnel entrance reinforced by wooden beams on the far side. It was mostly surrounded by water, with four Bridge Seeds and a strange yellow object on the wall. When Nyssa came closer, she realized it was a flower, its petals forming a delicate bell shape. Next to it, glowing blue letters spelled out a message on a dark sign.

_If an error is made, the Bell Blossom can call Bridge Seeds back to where they started._

Just as Nyssa was about to send the first Bridge Seed floating out onto the water, she caught sight of a passageway leading off to the side. Whatever room it led to was around the corner and could not be seen.

"What's over there?" she wondered aloud.

"We can check," Adrian replied with a shrug. "After all, we  _can_  call the seeds back."

The two of them emerged into an isolated room occupied by an Echo Flower and a gray bench that clearly had not been used in a long time. Underneath the bench sat a single plastic-wrapped spinach-and-egg quiche on a round white plate, looking clean and freshly cooked despite the long time that must have passed since it had been left there.

"I wasn't ready for the responsibility," the voice from the Echo Flower muttered. There was a dull clink, followed by receding footsteps. After that there was only silence.

"Should we take it?" Nyssa wondered, eyeing it. By human logic, it would be a bad idea to eat food that had been left out as long as this quiche had, but the Underground had proved time and time again that it anything but abided the laws of physics. She shook her head with a laugh and picked up the dish. "Whatever. It seems safe to eat, so we'd better take it with us just in case."

Nyssa deposited the quiche in her bag and exited the secret room, using the Bell Blossom to call the Bridge Seeds back so she and Adrian could use them to form a path to the tunnel. As she was crossing, her phone rang, and she fished it from her pocket. She turned it on speaker mode so that Adrian could listen.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"This is Papyrus!" a familiar voice crowed on the other end of the line.

"Papyrus? How did you get this number?"

"Oh, it was easy! I just dialed every number sequentially until I got yours!"

"Wouldn't that method of guessing take years?" Adrian pointed out.

"Oh, it's not important! Nyeh heh heh! Anyway… what are you two wearing? I'm asking for a friend. She thought she saw you in a shirt and shorts, and that Nyssa was in a black dress? Is that true?"

"Uhh… yes, that's what we're wearing…" Nyssa replied uncertainly. "Papyrus, you literally saw us less than an hour ago. What's going on?"

"Oh, okay, I got it! Wink wink…? Bye!"

"Wait–"

The phone gave a click as Papyrus hung up, leaving Nyssa with a suspicion she didn't want to believe.

_Xandre_

Xandre pillaged Toriel's house, stuffing anything he thought he'd need into his pack. A variety of different clothing in his size, because he had no idea what the climate would be in the rest of the Underground. Canned food. The remnants of a pie he found in the kitchen–he wondered briefly why more than three-quarters of it was missing. Surely Toriel wasn't able to eat that much alone. In a drawer underneath the kitchen counter, Xandre hit a jackpot. Knives. He had his hunting knife from the village, his bow, and his newfound magical powers, of course, but backup weapons wouldn't hurt. After all, there was no telling what kind of situation he'd run into.

After he was sure he had taken all he would need, Xandre descended the steps once again into the dank basement hallway, his bag weighing significantly heavier on his back. He pushed open the final gateway of the Ruins to reveal a pitch-dark room beyond it. The only thing visible was a small patch of green. Although he could not see the ground, he felt the springiness of grass beneath his boots.

A large flower sprung up from the illuminated area, a pale face in the center surrounded by six golden petals. Xandre yelled in shock and drew a knife from its sheath at his belt, brandishing it at the flower. "What do you want?" he demanded. To his surprise, the flower gave no reaction to his aggressive gesture but laughter. A small chuckle at first, escalating into a full-on guffaw. He bent over at his stem, overwhelmed as he was by his own amusement. When he finally recovered from his fit, the flower straightened up and grinned at Xandre, allowing one final chortle to escape as he looked him up and down.

"What's so funny?" Xandre growled. He lowered his knife warily, not allowing his glare to stray from the flower.

"You're not really human, are you?"

For a moment, Xandre tensed, thinking the flower was talking about Wing. Did he know, somehow? But as he continued, Xandre realized he was touching on something far darker.

"No," the flower replied, answering his own rhetorical question. A wicked smile curved across his face like a knife wound on pale skin. "You're empty inside. Just like I am. In fact… you're like Chara, right? We're still inseparable, after all these years…"

"Okay, who are you?" Xandre interrupted. "How do you know Chara?"

"Oh, of course, I haven't introduced myself! I forgot we haven't met–not  _formally,_ anyhow. I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower."

"Wait, what do you mean, 'formally'?"

"It just came as a surprise, since I already know you so well," Flowey giggled. "You're just like me, which is why I decided to help you!"

"You? Help me?"

"Yes!  _I_  disabled all the puzzles.  _I_ scared the monsters out from their hiding places so you could get at them.  _I_  was the one who cleared your way forward, all this time. And all the while, I watched you become more and more like me."

When Xandre said nothing, Flowey leaned forward conspirationally, his mouth leering devilishly. "Listen. I have a plan to become all-powerful. Even more powerful than you and your stolen soul. Let's destroy everything in this wretched world. Everyone, everything in these worthless memories… let's turn 'em all to dust."

The way Flowey was looking at Xandre chilled him to the bone, but he stood straight with his knife still tight in his grasp, unwilling to be cowed into looking away by a mere weed. "I will continue," Xandre said almost robotically, as if he had been hypnotized by something in Flowey's plan. "No one will escape."

When Flowey next spoke, there was an eerily reverberating quality to his voice, as if many creatures were speaking at once.

"That's a wonderful idea!"


	28. Wish Upon a Soul

_Adrian_

Once again, Adrian felt as if he and Nyssa were stepping into a place that was sacred, magical, as soon as they entered the next chamber. Echo Flowers grew from the indigo grass underfoot, their eerie cyan glow providing enough light to see by.

Something bright caught Adrian's eye and he looked up. At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of bright pinpricks glimmered from everywhere on the stone ceiling far above.

_Stars? But we're underground–that's not possible._

"They're crystals," Adrian realized. Until now, he had never realized just how beautiful they could look, sparkling down at him from the midnight-dark sky of the Underground.

Nyssa walked to the closest Echo Flower and touched a finger to its fluorescent petal.

"A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky," the voice from the flower murmured. "If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true." Here, the monster speaking gave a wistful sigh. "Now, all we have are these sparkling stones on the ceiling."

Following Nyssa's lead, Adrian awakened the next Echo Flower. "Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The king will prove that." This voice was higher and sounded more optimistic, eager, almost.

"C'mon, sis!" the voice from the first Echo Flower chirped. "Make a wish!"

"I wish my sister and I will see the real stars someday…"

The second voice trailed off on the fourth Echo Flower, and didn't speak again.

Adrian trailed his finger along the waves etched in the stone wall as he thought to himself. The sisters whose conversation had been preserved by the Echo Flowers were only two of the thousands who had been here. There was something tragic about this Wishing Room, this chamber of broken dreams. Monsters had come here to hope, to pray, to call for freedom together. To wish upon a sky of stars they had never seen.

The single tunnel that led away from the main chamber ended in a solid wall of stone. Across from its entrance was a single telescope. As the humans headed towards it, an Echo Flower sighed, "ah, my horoscope is the same as last week's…"

Out of curiosity, Adrian bent down and put his eye against the eyepiece of the telescope. Through it, he could see the crystals on the ceiling up close. Each one of them glimmered like miniature suns. But that wasn't what he noticed first.

What he noticed first was that there was writing on the lens of the telescope that stood out in stark contrast against the crystals he could see.

_Check wall,_  it read in black letters, with an arrow pointing in the direction of the dead end.

"Hey, Nyssa? Could you check that wall over there?" Adrian pointed at the barrier of stone blocking their exit.

"Sure…?" she replied, placing her hand against it. She yelped as part of the wall began crumbling away into sand as soon as she touched it. Adrian ran over to her as the hole in the stone widened until it was large enough for both of them to fit through.

"Well, that was… unexpected," Nyssa muttered.

Adrian shrugged. "I'm just glad we didn't end up trapped back there. That place was depressing."

He and Nyssa emerged side by side onto wooden planks, forming a platform over marshy water from which cattails poked out their furry tops. Off to the left, steps led into the water, and briefly Adrian wondered why they were there.

Ancient writing covered the stone wall. The letters were partially obscured, some chunks chipped away, but Adrian could just make out the words they formed.

"The war of humans and monsters," he read aloud. "Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear. Humans are incredibly strong. It would take the soul of nearly every monster just to equal the power of one human soul."

Why was some memory of Wing's nagging at the edge of Adrian's mind as he read this?

"So the  _humans_  started it," Nyssa murmured, horrified, and a weight sank in Adrian's chest as the revelation hit him at the same time.

"Everything we've been told is wrong," he realized, as it all slowly began to make sense. "The monsters had no reason to wage war on the humans. Our kind were the ones who attacked and took them by surprise. And according to this, the monsters stood no chance, their souls being so much weaker than ours.  _That's_  why they lost the war."

"It was so obvious," Nyssa breathed.

"History is written by the victors, and I guess we should have realized that," Adrian replied quietly. "Come on. Let's see what else the monsters wrote."

"Humans have one weakness," Nyssa began to read, moving farther to the right as the words did. "Ironically, it is the strength of their souls. Their power allows them to persist outside their human bodies, even after death. If a monster defeats a human, they can take its soul. A monster with a human soul is a horrible beast with unfathomable power."

Beside the words was an illustration of a strange creature, scratched into the stone like everything else had been. It was more worn than the words, in a way that Adrian and Nyssa could only make out a few parts clearly – clawed hands, a leg, the tip of a wing, a blazing eye. Two heart shapes hovered in front of its chest: one right side up, one upside down.

Adrian shuddered. He could almost have sworn that the monster's eye was staring straight out of the stone it had been carved into, setting its hungry gaze on his soul. There was something deeply unsettling about this drawing. Adrian couldn't put his finger on exactly what, but the uncanny feeling was certainly there.

"I don't like this," Nyssa whispered from next to him. "Not at all. This is all wrong."

"It is," Adrian agreed.

"Wait," Nyssa yelped. "So any being with both a human and a monster soul is unimaginably powerful…?"

"Based on what we just read, I would think so, yes."

" _Us,_  Adrian," Nyssa said empathically. "Everyone else's soul is either all human or all monster. But us. Look at us. Two thirds human, one third monster."

"You're right," Adrian realized, his hands going to his chest. His pulse thudded under his fingertips, and he knew that below even that was the power of his soul. Something that must contain so much more potential than he first thought. "It's because of the pieces of monster soul inside us that we can do magic and fight like they can, while being as strong as all humans are at the same time." The possibilities could be infinite. He and Nyssa could do more, become more powerful, than even Wing could due to their peculiar soul combination. It was exhilarating.

"How about the third person?" Nyssa asked. "Do you think he knows? How much power he has at his disposal?"

"If he's anything like what Flowey implied, let's hope not," Adrian replied with a shiver. "I'm trying so hard to convince myself he wouldn't do something so horrible."

"Toriel…?" Nyssa whispered. Her voice broke as she said the former queen's name, becoming something closer to a thin wail. Adrian had thought about her too, and he was just as unwilling to let his thoughts go in that direction as Nyssa was.

Adrian shook his head. "We can't afford to think about what would happen in that case. Remember, we don't know anything for sure. More likely than not, she's safe and sound in the Ruins, and so is the other human."

_Xandre_

Still uneager to venture into the rest of the Underground just yet–as anybody would be if they were faced with a grinning demonic flower on their way out–Xandre backtracked, yet again, to Toriel's house, resolving to spend one last night there before venturing out into the unknown.

Xandre fully understood the implications of falling asleep again, of course, especially in that house. There was the void. The memories from Wing. And of course, there was Chara.

Why was it that every time Chara's smiling face crossed Xandre's mind, he would feel something new, something unfamiliar? Something called him to her. Lured him into the depths of the void her ghost resided in whenever he slept. Maybe it was the promise of a partner, a person to work alongside him, somebody to remind him of his purpose whenever he felt the urge to turn back.

_I hope this is going to be worth it, Chara,_  was Xandre's last thought before he fell into the emptiness of sleep.

_Adrian_

"I have a feeling it's getting late up there," Adrian muttered, stifling a yawn. "We should find a place to rest so we have enough energy for tomorrow."

"But Undyne…"

"We've got to sleep eventually, Undyne or no Undyne," Adrian pointed out. "Better to do it now, when we know for sure where we are, than when we're deeper in this cave system. It's okay. I'll keep watch, and we can switch shifts halfway through, like we used to."

"Fair enough," Nyssa replied, clearly unconvinced. She shook her head. "I can't believe that after just one night in Sans and Papyrus's house, we're not used to this anymore."

"Let's find a safe spot. I think we should go to that room behind the waterfall."

"Where we found the tutu? But it's such a long way away. We'll be reversing almost half the progress we made today."

"I'd rather do that than keep going blindly deeper into the Underground, especially while getting more and more tired with every step we take. We need to be alert for this."

"Good point. Let's go."

The two humans turned to find their refuge behind a curtain of cascading water, neither of them aware of the small yellow flower that had come out of the ground just behind.

_Memory_

Wing wished he could lose himself in the drone of machinery that was ever-present in the CORE. He strode down a walkway alone with his thoughts, his feet taking him almost against his will to the room that had been the true point of this entire project.

_I wish I had been brave enough to tell Helvetica before she died,_  he thought regretfully.  _She more than deserved to know who I truly am._

_Helvetica, are you there somewhere, watching me?_

_Do you know?_

_Do you know that during the last year of your life, I turned into somebody else? Somebody willing to kill just for the smallest chance that a plan might work? Somebody nothing like the man you married?_

_Sometimes the wrong thing must be done for the right reason,_  Wing reflected, although a small part of him whispered that he was just trying to make himself feel better about all this. By this point, Wing was inside the secret room. He had come here so many times since Helvetica died that he didn't even need to consciously command his body to go through the motions of walking here. At the other side of the room, covered by a tarp in a poor attempt to protect it, was the machine Wing had spent so long designing. He could almost feel the immense power within it, a buzz barely contained by the comparatively fragile metal shell he'd forced it into. Theoretically, it could do so much. Warp time. Jump between universes. Even reverse death.

Looking at it, he was reminded of how enormous a risk he would be taking when he finally decided to carry out his plan. He had no way of knowing whether or not the machine was truly capable of accessing other dimensions, only that it could tear space-time. Everything had been based on theory alone. The machine could only be activated once, and after that happened, there would be no going back.

The lose-lose situation Wing had forced himself into was so extreme that he could barely believe it himself. If it didn't work, it'd be too late for Wing to do anything by then. He'd certainly lose his life.

And if it  _did_  work, he'd have no choice but to give up his morality.

Life.

Morals.

_For monsterkind,_ Wing forced himself to repeat over and over in his mind.  _They are what matters. Sans and Papyrus and my father and Alphys. Helvetica. For them, I'd do anything._

_Right?_

_Xandre_

Wing's secret room disappeared around Xandre, replaced by the fathomless blackness of the void. As if on cue, Chara appeared, walking out of the darkness. Xandre briefly considered interrogating her. He had learned a lot since the two of them had last met, after all, and hers was the last voice he needed to hear before he would be able to put together the story of her past.

Something prevented him from doing it.  _Wait,_  the voice urged.  _Some information is not for you to know now. Besides, do you really think she will tell you?_

_Good point,_  Xandre reasoned with himself.

Was it just Xandre, or did Chara have a new glint in her eyes tonight?

"The machine," was the first thing she said, and Xandre immediately realized why she looked so excited. "Do you think it's still there? That it still works?"

"Yes," Xandre said before he even thought about the answer. It felt like the answer was coming from deeper than just his intuition, as if Wing himself had spoken the simple affirmative that would send their true story into motion.

"According to Wing's memory, it's  _very_  powerful," Chara said, laying out the facts in front of herself and Xandre, it seemed. "Used with the correct power source, it could do almost anything… including reverse death." The left side of her mouth curled upwards in a humorless smile. "And if it's still fully functional…"

"But Wing's memory also mentioned that the machine could only be activated once," Xandre pointed out.

"Maybe the energy burst that killed Wing didn't count?"

"Maybe," Xandre replied doubtfully. "Anyway,  _assuming_  this machine still works, what exactly do you plan for us to do with it?"

Xandre shivered as Chara's fingertips brushed against his shoulder to motion him in closer. She bent over and whispered in his ear, and he felt the eerie sensation–or lack thereof–of no breath against his skin as she spoke, a reminder that Chara was really just a ghost, a vestige of her former self. But she clearly didn't plan to stay that way for long. The more she said to him, the broader her smile became.


	29. Goner

_Nyssa_

"So you got the dream too? The memory about the machine?"

"I did," Adrian confirmed.

"That must mean the third human got it too." Nyssa shivered. She didn't like one bit of this. The mere idea of something with such limitless potential still existing terrified her, as well as the thought that they weren't the only people who knew about it. There was something very different about the human who bore the third piece of Wing's soul, she knew now. He was nothing like her and Adrian. For better or worse, she had no idea, but she knew he was  _different._

He was far behind them, so they had no idea what he had been doing in the Underground. The only source they had was unreliable – Flowey had alluded to him. Toriel could be in danger because of him. He could very well have malicious intentions.

And now he, too, knew Wing's secret.

_Adrian_

"Come on. We'll have to travel fast to make up for all the backtracking we did last night."

"Yeah. We should get going," Nyssa agreed, picking up her pack. The pair fast-walked up to the point where they had turned back, and reevaluated the path.

The wooden boardwalk stopped abruptly, leaving nothing but a wide expanse of dark, rippling water ahead of them. Under the overhanging wood planks, Nyssa and Adrian discovered a single square raft, bobbing up and down gently in the water.

"There's no other way across?"

"Apparently." Nyssa eyed the raft. "Can that thing even hold the weight of both of us combined? More importantly, how do we know it'll take us somewhere we want to go?"

Adrian sighed. "It's worth a try–we don't want to be stranded over on this side forever, especially if there's a lot more ahead. If all else fails... well... we can just swim, right?"

Nyssa looked at the black water pointedly. "We  _could._  But would you  _want_  to?"

"Yeah, you're right. Let's just hope this thing holds."

Adrian stepped down onto the raft first, flinching when it swayed under his weight. Even still, it remained stable even when Nyssa tentatively poked it with one foot. She seemed satisfied and climbed down onto it. It lurched, making both of them cry out, but neither of them fell off when it started zooming across the water at an impossibly fast pace.

"How is this physically possible?" Adrian sputtered. "And how are we still standing?"

"I have no idea! Magic!"

As the raft sped on, Adrian began to be able to make out the faint shape of another dock. They were deposited there and climbed up onto the wood, grateful to have something more stable than a flimsy collection of boards to stand on. When Adrian raised his head, he yelped aloud.

A gray monster with blank eyes was staring him straight in the face.

"Who– what–!" he cried, narrowly avoiding falling back into the water. Next to him, Nyssa stared at the monster, trembling slightly. They made no move to attack, though. Adrian, realizing he was still very much on edge after their encounter with Undyne, got back on his feet. The monster was much smaller than he'd thought; less than half his height. Just like Monster Kid. In fact, this being seemed to be an identical replica of Monster Kid, albeit devoid of color and without pupils.

Although the child was looking straight at him, they still seemed as if they were in a different place altogether when they began talking. Their voice quavered slightly."Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same... except you don't exist?" they whispered.

Adrian met Nyssa's eye. There was something terrifying about this monster–they were certainly more than a mere child, that was for sure. He could almost see the years of pain lurking behind their blank eyes.

"Everything functions perfectly without you," they continued quietly. "Ha, ha... the thought terrifies me."

Just as Adrian thought they were done talking, they looked at him again. This time, he felt as if they really had locked eyes with him.

"You know him, don't you?"

"Wh... who?"

"You're sure who I'm talking about," the monster replied vaguely. "I know you are."

"We..."

The monster gave a limp laugh. "You know, that does make me feel a little better about all this. Thank you." Was it just Adrian, or had they not been addressing him when they'd said that? It had been like they were conversing with something,  _someone_  else only their sightless eyes could... see.

"Please leave," they added when the humans didn't move away. "Please, forget about me. Please don't think about this anymore."

The monster didn't shift an inch, but when Adrian looked back over his shoulder as he left with Nyssa, he saw no one standing on the dock behind them.

_Nyssa_

The farther Nyssa and Adrian walked down the boardwalk, the longer their shadows became, until the entire path was shrouded in darkness. Nyssa didn't like this at all. Anything could be hiding there, in the murkiness just a few feet from them in every direction, and they would never know until it was too late.

Just as she was thinking this, a blue spear thudded into the wood not inches from the tips of her boots, sending cracks radiating across the board.

Nyssa screamed, and looked up straight into the face of the same armored warrior they had seen talking to Papyrus earlier. Undyne, Head of the Royal Guard. And she was there to kill them. Three spears, even larger and sharper than the one that had just missed them, spun into existence around her and took aim.

"Run!" Nyssa shrieked. She and Adrian took off sprinting across the dock, their feet making the wood begin to creak and sway. That was the least of their worries. Behind them, spearheads buried themselves deep in rotting wood, and Nyssa knew that if she and Adrian slowed for just a moment, they would be killed instantly.

Noticing that the spears took a while to take aim, Nyssa took to weaving erratically, stopping to allow them to aim at where she was currently standing, and immediately moving to a safer place, out of range. Adrian followed, and together they fled for their lives across the boardwalk. A spear grazed Nyssa's arm, creating a long red slash down her forearm and ending just before her wrist. The adrenaline pumping through her veins served to dull the pain. For now, it was inconsequential. All that mattered was getting out alive.

Her eyes followed the line of scarlet blood and an idea came to her. She could only hope she would be able to pull it off in time.

She continued to run, but on the inside she reached deep into her memories, struggling to extend her consciousness beyond anything she had gained during her current life. She had to go back farther. Back to Wing.

Nyssa stumbled. Adrian cried out, and Undyne closed in victoriously. But she was no longer afraid for her life. All she had to do was remember, and get up so she could free her hands...

The right memory surfaced, and she signed  _shield._

Just as the spear was about to impact, indigo Wingdings flared into existence, forming a barrier between its flashing tip and Nyssa's body. The weapon was knocked away and fell through a crack between two planks into the water.

"Yes!" Nyssa yelled. She and Adrian were still in danger, but Wing's magic had just made it a lot easier to survive. Undyne seemed to be shocked enough at the sight of a human doing magic that she hesitated before releasing her next attack. By that time, the humans were already far ahead of her, and only a few steps from the exit. Nyssa whipped around to sign one more time, sealing the cave entrance behind them with a wall of magical symbols so that neither Undyne nor her spears could get through.

"Nyssa..." Adrian breathed, forgetting to run.

"I don't know how long it'll last," she cried. "Let's go!"

The two humans dived into a clump of long grass, where it became impossible to distinguish their location among all the waving fronds. There, they finally had time to catch their breath. Undyne must have broken through the Wingdings shield some way or another, because her spears now soared through the air over the humans' heads. None of them even came close to hitting their mark–she had absolutely no idea where they were.

At least, that was what Nyssa thought until Undyne herself marched into the grass, heading straight for them. She stopped right in front of where they were attempting to press themselves as low to the ground as possible.

Her arm punched into the grass and found something.

Nyssa and Adrian stared at each other, but neither of them had Undyne's armored hand clamped on their shoulder. How was it possible that Undyne had caught somebody? The Royal Guard examined her catch. It was Monster Kid, who looked at her with a huge smile on his face despite the fact that she was holding him up in a way that seemed to be very painful.

Undyne shook her head disapprovingly, let Monster Kid back down into the grass, and walked away before he could start gushing excitedly about meeting her.

The coast was clear. Both humans stumbled out of the grass mostly unhurt, hardly believing their luck. Monster Kid scrambled out behind them, bouncing happily from foot to foot as he looked at them with his eyes sparkling in excitement.

"Yo... did you see that? Undyne just  _touched_  me! I'm never washing my face ever again...! Man, you guys sure are unlucky, aren't you? If one of you had just been standing a  _bit_  to the left...! Yo, don't worry! I'm sure we'll see her again!"

Like the last time, he dashed off before either human had a chance to respond.

Nyssa couldn't decide whether to be frustrated or charmed by the extent of the monster child's clueless innocence. He obviously had no idea. Even when his face was practically being rubbed in the evidence.

"I'm sure he'll realize soon enough," Adrian muttered.

_Xandre_

Chara's words were still circling in Xandre's mind as he made his final preparations to leave the Ruins.

Her plan made perfect, terrible sense.

He realized now how much trust he was putting in the ghost girl from his dreams. Her directions were specific to the finest detail, the instructions she had given him unbelievably precise. Everything about his journey through the Underground now relied wholly on her and whether or not her words were sound.

Strangely, Xandre had no problem with it.

He had no other options anyways. Nothing to lose. On top of that, he knew Chara needed him as much as he needed her. Her existence was being sustained entirely by his EXP and LV.  _His,_  not hers. This, he reasoned, must make her dependent enough on him that she wouldn't risk leading him into a trap. Of course, he was now just as reliant. They were a binary system. Each needed the other too much for any kind of trickery–that would jeopardize them both.

Flowey wasn't waiting in the final chamber like he had been the last time, although Xandre was sure he must be watching from some hidden nook or cranny somewhere.  _Will the plan he mentioned interfere with Chara's?_  He wondered.  _No matter–if ours goes well, we won't have to worry about him for too long._  He braced his shoulder against the door to Snowdin and pushed against it. The gateway ground open and sent frigid air blasting into the chamber, carrying a flurry of snowflakes with it.

For just a moment, sky-blue soul marks flickered to life in Xandre's palms, reminding him of the tremendous magical power he had at his disposal. The Ruins had just been the beginning.

_We will be unstoppable._


	30. FUN VALUE 66

_Xandre_

Xandre opened the door to find a silent, white world.

Snowflakes swirled down from the sky, riding the breeze. They caught on the needles of the pines that lined the path, frosting their deep green boughs with specks of white crystal. The heavy stone door swung closed as soon as Xandre stepped through it. The sound tore through the unnatural silence of Snowdin, throwing up clouds of soft snow.

An unnatural glint from a bush caught Xandre's attention. He pushed the branches aside to reveal a camera, its shining black lens pointed directly at him.

He knew there was nothing he could do about it since it had already sighted him, but he threw some snow at it for good measure before continuing on his way down the path. He was being watched. But by whom? By whoever was spectating behind the camera, yes. But also by someone else. Just as Xandre reached the bridge with the wooden bars across it, Sans showed himself, calling out the greeting he had long memorized by now and extending his hand.

Xandre, like Nyssa and Adrian had, recognized Sans but didn't feel the need to acknowledge that. Wing's child or not, Sans was still a monster in his way, an obstacle between him and his final goal. Xandre frowned when Sans approached him but shook anyway. Just as before, a fart sound ripped through the silence. The skeleton looked at him eagerly. His grin quickly became a confused expression when Xandre didn't crack a smile.

"Uhh... that's your cue to laugh?" Sans hinted awkwardly.

Xandre just stared at him.

"Or, um, to emote at all?" To himself, Sans added quietly, "jeez, lady, you really know how to pick 'em, huh?"

No response.

"Um... okay. Everyone's got their own sense of humor, so that's fine. Anyway, I'm Sans the skeleton." Sans shivered slightly when Xandre continued to watch him stoically, which made him glad on the inside. "Follow me through this gate thingy, then. Welcome to Snowdin."

_Adrian_

"Okay, Nyssa, we need to talk about this. What you did back there, with Undyne. That was unbelievable–we were absolutely doomed, but you managed to save both of our lives. How?"

"I had the idea, and..." Nyssa shrugged. "Wing took care of the rest."

"How did you even know it would work?" Adrian asked incredulously.

"I didn't. But I decided to trust him," she replied simply.

_Nyssa_

A single lump of cheese sat on a round wooden table. Somehow, it had been frozen inside a pink crystal. An echo flower stood silently next to a mouse hole in the wall. When Nyssa touched it, it squeaked like a mouse. "Am I the only one who's getting a weird feeling here?" Nyssa asked anxiously, peering ahead of them. The way ahead into the next hall should be clear, but the exit from this room was strangely dark, as if the Underground itself were hiding something.

"No, you most definitely are not," Adrian assured her.

Nyssa walked up to the point where her field of vision abruptly ended and stuck a hand into the shadows. The air on the other side was colder by several degrees and unusually still.

"Nyssa? What  _is_  that place?"

"I have no idea, but we have to pass through it." Nyssa eyed the exit nervously. "I don't like this any more than you do. Hey, we might be worrying for nothing, right? It's probably just a passageway. A creepy one, but still." She couldn't help but feel a bit like she were a small child afraid to wander into the basement. Scared of the dark, fearing monstrosities when there really were none at all.

"Yeah. Okay. Sure. Let's go."

Adrian stepped in first and Nyssa followed, ducking through the shadow as if it were a curtain of some type. It certainly felt that way. Solid. Heavy. Tangible, almost.

The darkness kept growing.

The shadows cutting deeper.

And then they were through, emerging from the darkness into a bare, unmarked hallway. There was nothing that distinguished it from any other tunnel except for its stark plainness–and the fact that a single gray door interrupted the blue of the wall halfway to the other side. There was nothing bizarre about the outward appearance of the place. Its strangeness lay in the feeling that hung thick in the air, a presence. But the presence of what?

Or whom?

Whatever it was, Nyssa was starting to become increasingly convinced she and Adrian were far from alone.

Suddenly, she felt the pull again, a tug from deep in her soul as one third struggled to give direction.  _The door,_  Wing urged. At the same time, Adrian met Nyssa's eye. The borderline telepathic connection between the two united their thoughts as one, and they wordlessly agreed on what they were going to do.

Adrian tried the doorknob. It twisted. "Unlocked," he murmured. "It's now or never."

The room was dark. So dark. Nyssa's eyes struggled to work, straining to pick up any shape, any form, in the blackness. Behind them, the door clicked shut again. That was the last thing she registered before both she and Adrian promptly fainted.

_Xandre_

"My brother's coming! Quick, behind that conveniently shaped lamp."

Xandre turned, and saw a lamp sitting in the snow that was coincidentally the exact shape and size to conceal a human. He saw the lamp and noticed it, but didn't move a muscle.

 _Sans and Papyrus are no threat to me. At least not right now._  Besides, it gave Xandre a feeling of savage satisfaction to disobey Sans. Put him in his place.

"Well, I guess you don't have to?" Sans said with a frown, looking Xandre over suspiciously. Before he had the chance to say anything more, Wing's younger son burst into the clearing, his red scarf flying out behind him.

"Sans! Have you found another human yet?" he called out to his brother, seemingly unaware of the fact that Xandre was standing right next to him. Xandre mentally noted his usage of the word  _another._

"Yeah."

"Really? Wowie. Guess that's settled." Papyrus's gaze did flick over to Xandre for a split second, but he quickly redirected his focus, as if he would rather pretend he wasn't even there. Did even Sans's brother have the intuition to tell something was wrong with Xandre from the very start? So wrong that Papyrus, human-hunting fanatic that he was, refused to acknowledge him?

_I'd prefer he had his guard down, but I can work with this._

Papyrus turned around awkwardly and left without a word.

"Right," Sans growled as soon as his brother was safely out of hearing range. "Let's get down to business here, kid. There's something off about you. Even more than the other two. And I  _knew_  what was different about them, but you... what  _are_  you?"

Xandre remained mute, meeting Sans's gaze steadily. Neither confirming nor denying his suspicions, just strengthening them.

"Well, then. I'll just be straightforward in this case. For all his Royal Guard obsession, Papyrus loves humans, and all I want is for him to be happy. So, y'know... it'd really help me out if you kept pretending to be one."

_Adrian_

Shapes. Colors. Morphing and twisting in front of his eyes. Blurry at first, before consolidating into more distinguishable forms.

Adrian saw heart shapes, multicolored and plain white, right side up and upside down. Light trailed from each one of them, tracing their paths on a map of some sort. Adrian realized it was the Underground–the crumbling city of the Ruins (empty of hearts), the tundra of Snowdin, the marsh of Waterfall and other areas ahead he couldn't yet identify–populated with souls. Monsters. Lives. All surrounded by a fluctuating field of ones and zeros.

Hovering above it all was a line of white Wingdings that read  _FUN VALUE 66._  As Adrian watched, the 66 changed into other numbers–61, 62, 63, 97–and each time it did, souls appeared and disappeared on the map. Adrian realized that around the Fun value were many other streams of data–the date, the population of the Underground, even the number of years the monsters had been trapped. Adrian tried to say something, but found that he couldn't move any part of his body. He was completely paralyzed, with no way to call out or even turn his head to make sure Nyssa was here too, seeing this.

Something blue caught Adrian's eye. A cyan heart with one white third, right at the beginning of Snowdin. It was the third human. As if the interface had responded to his focusing on it, a dialogue box appeared above the soul, again in Wingdings.

_Xandre . WingDinGaster . Human . Patience/Magic . LV6 . HP2222/2222 . ATK222 . DEF222 . 80G . 21Kills._

If Adrian had been able to move his mouth, he would have cried aloud.

_LV 6. 21 kills._

All his worst fears had just been confirmed. Xandre was a murderer. He had killed 21 monsters, and didn't show any sign of stopping. A being as powerful as he was choosing to take the path of genocide spelled thousands of monsters' demise. Adrian was beyond appalled.

For the briefest of moments, another heart–a red one, this time–appeared on top of the blue one.

_CharaDreemurr . Human . Determination . LV0 . HP0/0 . ATK0 . DEF0 . 0G._

Then it flickered out of sight. The glimpse had been quick, but Adrian was sure he hadn't misread the name. How could he have?

 _Oh, my God._  Chara. By some miracle, she was alive, and still here in the Underground. How was that possible? Adrian himself had seen the monster child carrying her dead body. He even remembered the buttercup petal that still clung to the edge of her mouth.

Chara was here, but for reasons Adrian could not fathom, she was with Xandre, the murderer.

Morbidly intrigued, Adrian continued to check more of the souls.

_SansSerifGaster . Monster . Magic . LV1 . HP1/1 . ATK1 . DEF1 . 1827G._

_PapyrusGaster . Monster . Magic . LV1 . HP680/680 . ATK20 . DEF20 . 391G._

And far in the distance:  _AsgoreDreemurr . Monster . Magic . LV1 . HP3500/3500 . ATK80 . DEF80._

That one was surrounded by six differently colored human souls, although when Adrian checked the green one, it simply said:

_RobertSmith . Human . Kindness . Deceased._

The initial terror after Adrian realized Toriel was nowhere to be found quickly mutated into stone-cold rage.

_He killed her._

_Xandre killed her!_

Adrian longed to be able to move his body so he could curl his hand into a fist, feel the bite of his nails digging into his palm. Xandre. The disgusting creature. How dare he go around hurting people so innocent? People who had done him no wrong?

The sudden, enormous influx of data began to overwhelm Adrian, and he began to feel dizzy. His mind was simply unable to process such a large amount of information in such a short time.

Once again he felt his consciousness slip away, but not before he realized,  _we must never let Xandre get to Wing's machine first._


	31. Whispers of Freedom

_Nyssa_

Nyssa woke up thorougly disoriented, her head spinning as she tried to refocus herself.

_Where am I?_

Around her, she saw four plain gray walls and a similarly featureless ceiling, and when she looked down she saw that the floor looked the same. It was almost as if she were trapped inside a cubical box.

A cubical box with a gray door.

_Wait... the gray door._

At the sight of that, all the sights from before she had fainted flooded back into her memory, leaving her feeling dizzy again. She remembered the presence she couldn't identify. She remembered going into this room with Adrian and seeing the entire Underground laid out before her, populated by pulsing souls. And she remembered Xandre, the murderer. Committing genocide on his path through the Ruins, and heading into Snowdin.

There was a rustle beside her. Adrian was coming to. He sat up, coughing a few times, and almost collapsed again. "Nyssa," he sputtered when his eyes met hers. "D-did you see it too?"

"Yes," Nyssa replied grimly. "All of it."

"We have to... stop him."

"He has so much EXP, though. It would be suicide to go back and try to reason with him."

"We outnumber him two to one. We could fight–"

"And stoop to his level? And again, there's the issue of his EXP, which likely makes his magic stronger than both of us combined. Think about it, Adrian. It wouldn't be smart to attempt facing him. He'd kill us and keep mass-murdering monsters."

"We can't just let those monsters die!"

"They won't. Not if we play this right. We'll find Sans, and tell him to warn the monsters of Snowdin. We can get the news to the population of Waterfall and beyond as we travel through. With any hope, word will spread, and the monsters will evacuate to safer ground–probably around the palace area, farther underground. Then we get to the CORE and guard it."

"Sounds like a plan that could go very, very wrong," Adrian worried.

"It could," Nyssa agreed. "But right now, it's all we've got. We have to save the Underground from Xandre before it's too late."

_Xandre_

The thought of stepping into Snowdin exhilarated Xandre. The snowy plains of this tundra must be teeming with monsters, and in them, boundless potential. Snow whipped past his hair and numbed his face as he pushed on.

As he set out on his hunt, he could almost hear Chara's voice whispering in the back of his mind, urging him on. Constantly reminding him of the future that lay in store for them both.  _We will erase this pointless world, and move on to the next. Through the dust of our enemies, we will become gods._

Xandre smiled to himself, pleased. He and Chara had already accomplished so much thus far. They had cleared the Ruins, taking all the EXP and LV the abandoned city had to offer, and created a plan that would carry them to greatness.

 _Since when has this been an "us" thing?_  his inner voice demanded. Since when had Xandre really been thinking of himself and Chara as a team? To his surprise, he realized that he didn't want her gone as much as he'd originally thought. Chara certainly wasn't a bad person to have alongside him. He wanted her as his ally. He wanted her by his side. He tried to convince himself it was only because she could potentially become extremely powerful, and not because he himself had taken any kind of liking to her.

It was getting increasingly difficult for Xandre to deny the way he felt towards Chara. She intrigued him like nobody else had ever done before. Back on the Surface, Xandre had never bothered to think much about girls besides the ones who hunted alongside him from time to time–and when it came to them, it was always about how to use their combined skills to track and kill prey, not... anything beyond that. He was simply not interested in any of them in  _that_  way. Never had been.

Chara? She was different. He felt an attachment to her deeper than that between the co-conspirators they had become. Locked in a path of darkness that would one day lead to their glory, they had practically been made for one another. And Xandre knew she felt it too. He saw it in her mannerisms, the way she would edge closer to him when she thought he wasn't looking, move as if to brush hands before pulling away.

But there was something fundamentally different about their relationship, of course. Different, and twisted, and wrong. Its guiding force wasn't love–it was LOVE.

_Adrian_

Sure enough, Sans stood next to a telescope in the room beyond the hallway, almost as if he were expecting them. "You won't  _believe_  what happened today," Sans called out. "So there was this human–"

"Sans," Adrian burst out. "We need to tell you something important, and it's actually about him. That human who just entered Snowdin is dangerous. He massacred the monsters of the Ruins and will do the same to the rest of the Underground if we don't warn the others. You need to start evacuating everyone."

"Woah, woah, slow down." The skeleton looked at the two of them dubiously. "How do you know this? Sure, the guy was acting a little funny, but–"

"There was a room. In that hallway, back there." Adrian gestured behind him.

"Uhh... kid? What hallway?"

Adrian turned.

 _No, this isn't possible._  Where there had been an extra passageway just moments before, there was now only the room with the crystallized cheese. An entire segment of the Underground had simply vanished into thin air. Another magical violation of the laws of physics Adrian should've gotten used to by now.

"There was one..." Adrian sputtered. "Where we saw the whole Underground and Xandre's stats and–" when Sans kept looking at him doubtfully, Adrian gave up, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Look, Sans, I know it sounds crazy, but we need you to get everybody to a safer place before it's too late. You can't let him catch the monsters. Especially not in Snowdin Town, where there are whole families who'll be in danger."

"It's true," Nyssa added. "If he manages to get to them, he'll spare them no mercy. He had no trouble killing everyone in the Ruins."

 _"Everyone?"_ Sans murmured in horror. "Including her?"

" 'Her'?"

"The woman on the other side of the door to the Ruins. It started when I was practicing knock-knock jokes there, just for fun, you know? So one day, I'm knocking 'em out, as usual, and I say, 'knock knock'. And suddenly, from the other side, a woman actually asks, 'who is there?' I was surprised I got an answer, but I was just glad for the audience and kept going. Naturally, I responded, 'dishes'. 'Dishes who?' the woman replies. And I tell her, 'dishes a very bad joke.'"

Despite the situation, Adrian chuckled weakly. Sans didn't.

"Yeah. So then the woman starts howling with laughter, like it's the best joke she's heard in a hundred years. So I keep 'em coming and she laughs at every single one of them. Then after about a dozen,  _she_  says 'knock knock', so I say, 'who's there?' 'Old lady.' 'Old lady who?' 'Oh, I did not know you could yodel!'" Sans looked wistfully into the distance, and Adrian imagined that if he had eyes, tears would have been forming in them. "Needless to say, she was extremely good. We told jokes for hours like that, just talking through the door. After a while I had to go–Papyrus gets cranky without his bedtime story. But she told me to come by again. And I did. Over and over and over. We never did learn each other's names," he added quietly. The lights that served as his pupils dimmed until his eye sockets were a pair of empty voids, staring back at Adrian and making goosebumps rise on his arms.

"Toriel," Nyssa whispered from beside Adrian. A tear traced its way down her cheek as she raised her head to make eye contact with Sans. "Her name was Toriel, and she was one of the kindest monsters I've ever met. She didn't deserve any of what Xandre forced onto her. Neither did any of the others."

"If he's killed her..." Sans snarled, "if he's really killed her... he's going to get it, all right. And if he dares lay one filthy hand on my brother, I'll rip the soul from his body."

_Xandre_

The Snowdrake screeched in pain under Xandre's knife as his flashing blade cut through feathers and skin. He didn't let go, not until the bird's cries faded into silence and it dissolved into dust. The smell of its feathers–like a cold, wet down pillow–lingered in the air for a moment more.

Worthless. All these monsters were worthless. Their lives were a small price to pay for what lay ahead.

Reevaluating the crossroads, Xandre took the path that lead to the north first, and found nothing but a fishing rod affixed to the ground beside a fast-flowing ice river. There seemed to be a lot of this in Snowdin, ice and wind and rushing water. Out of sheer curiosity, Xandre reeled the fishing rod in. Somebody had hooked a piece of sodden parchment on the other end of the string. Xandre made out a picture of a weird-looking monster and a phone number.  _Here's my number! Call me!_  The writing on the bottom read.

He decided not to call. The monster wouldn't be alive much longer anyway.

The path to the east gave him more success. It went on for a while–Xandre killed an Ice Cap on the way–before he saw Papyrus and Sans facing one another up ahead.

"So, Sans!" Papyrus was saying. "When's the human showing up? I want to look my Sunday best, or at least my Tuesday pretty-good."

"Don't you only have one outfit?" Sans pointed out, gesturing at Papyrus's armor and flowing red scarf.

"Well, I could style my hair!"

Sans stared at his brother. "Um... yeah. Sure. Good idea." He turned and caught sight of Xandre, and a shadow flitted across his face. Xandre could've sworn Sans shot him a warning glare before calling Papyrus's attention. "Say, why don't you look over there?"

Papyrus spun around no fewer than ten times before he finally came to a stop, facing in an entirely wrong direction. "Sans, I'm dizzy. What am I looking at, exactly?"

"Behold," Sans replied, pointing at Xandre.

Instead of focusing on him, Papyrus fixated on something behind his back. "Oh my god, Sans!" he cried, before frowning. "Um, why are you making me look at a rock?"

"In front of the rock!"

"Oh my god," Papyrus exclaimed again, before he looked at his brother uncertainly. "I have no idea what that is."

"Not a rock, that's for sure."

"Not a rock? Then by process of elimination, that must be a human! Ahem! Human! Prepare yourself. For high jinks, for low jinks, dangers, puzzles, capers, japers! Being captured. And other sorts of, uh, fun activities. Refreshments will be provided, if you dare! Nyeh heh heh!" Papyrus dashed off excitedly.

Once again alone with Sans, Xandre made eye contact with Wing's eldest son.

"You don't even bat an eye, huh?" Sans muttered. "I strongly advise you watch yourself, kid, or you'll find out just how badly Karmic Retribution can hurt."

_Nyssa_

Bioluminescent water lapped softly on either side of the narrow passage Nyssa and Adrian walked across now, illuminating the inky grass underfoot in fluorescent blue. Out of all the locations she and Adrian had visited so far, Waterfall resonated with Nyssa the most. There was something about its darkness, interrupted by flashing crystals and glowing water, that entranced her. Here was a place where monsters could lie back in the grass and gaze at the "stars", feel a warm breeze on their faces, almost like they were out on the Surface.

The ancient stories on the walls, the sky full of crystallized constellations, the constant slosh of running water that glowed with a light of its own. It all combined for an ethereally tranquil effect, as she were wandering across the surface of an alien planet.

A chorus of echo flowers murmured around them as they continued on their way. They whispered of dreams, of wishes, of hopes for the future that had never come to pass. Nyssa wondered how long these flowers had been around, and just how much they had heard.

Maybe one day–one day soon–a different message would resound through these echo flower meadows. One of joy, and of celebration.  _We're free,_  the flowers would whisper and whisper into the empty Underground.  _The Surface is beautiful. We can see the sun and the moon and the stars again. The real sun, the real moon, the real stars._

_We're free._

_Memory_

"Do you think there's a chance?" Helvetica whispered. She and Wing held hands under the light of the twinkling crystals, sitting side by side on the dark grass with their faces upturned towards the cave ceiling. "That we'll all go out onto the Surface again?"

Wing turned, saw the glimmering constellations above reflected in her eyes, giving a silvery sheen to her skin and her hair. Here in the unearthly light of Waterfall, she looked otherworldly as she gazed back at him, something too beautiful and too exquisite for this world. One of his hands found a place at the curve of her waist. Helvetica held on to his wrist gently and slipped a finger through the hole in his palm, keeping his hand there. He pulled her in closer and she pressed herself lovingly against his side.

"You never know. One day," Helvetica continued. "Just imagine it. All of us, finally free. We could go out onto the Surface and look at the real stars." She giggled and nudged Wing playfully. "Who knows how many new discoveries you could make there, Dr. Wingdings?"

"Yeah," Wing agreed.

"And–" she hesitated a bit. "Maybe, by then, we could even have children, if you want. A family of our own."

"I would really like to have kids," he told her. He allowed a small smile to find its way onto his face as he imagined it, a future he knew they would probably never have but he let himself dream of anyway. Their children would laugh and play in the light of the sun, and he and Helvetica would be there watching over them, proud parents seeing them grow up free and happy and safe. He realized that was what he wanted the most, more than anything else: freedom. For his family, and for every other monster family trapped Underground. "I want that," he said aloud. "I want our children to live their lives free, even if we can't."

_I want our children to live their lives free, even if we can't._

The two of them leaned into each other, lost in one another and their hopes and dreams. Dreams for a family and a life somewhere away from the caverns they had been confined to for two thousand years. A life in the shining world above.

"Helvetica," Wing murmured, "if there's one thing I want to be able to do with all I'm capable of as the Royal Scientist, it's to bring us freedom. If I can help it, we will be the last generation of monsters to live Underground. Science holds the key to breaking the barrier. All I have to do is find it. After that, the dreams of our kind will come true. I will free the monster race if it's the last thing I do."

"I want our children to be happy on the Surface, Wing," Helvetica whispered, nestling against the black material of his robe and resting her head on his shoulder.

"They will be," Wing replied, and he had never meant it more in his life. "They will be. I swear it."


	32. Unexpected Guidance

_Xandre_

So Sans knew.

Xandre still wasn't sure whether he presented a genuine threat or if he was nothing but a simple distraction. Either way, he resolved to steer clear of the older skeleton brother until he became strong enough to deal with him. Killing monsters in his vincinity would also prove itself to be a bad idea.

 _Those brothers are everywhere,_  he thought frustratedly.  _Can't even go two steps without bumping into them._

Just earlier, he had passed a sentry booth shabbily built by Papyrus. "You observe the well-crafted sentry station," a piece of cardboard tacked to the wood had read. "Who could have built this, you ponder? I bet it was that very famous Royal Guardsman, Papyrus! Note: not yet a very famous Royal Guardsman." Xandre had rolled his eyes at that.  _Papyrus, a Royal Guard? That's ridiculous. I would assume the job at least requires a certain degree of... brainpower._

Now, he was staring down a black-and-white dog who crouched behind another sentry booth, a charred dog biscuit hanging out of his mouth. Although he tried to look brave, Xandre noticed the dog shivering slightly as he looked him over. It was interesting how much terror he could strike even in the monsters who had no idea who he was, just by looking at them.

 _Very, very interesting._ It was almost as if they could read the LV flickering in his eyes, six levels' worth of pale dust reflected against the ultramarine of his irises.

"H... hey... Who's there!?"

The Royal Guard emerged from his sentry booth with a knife glinting in each paw, his pale pink top fluttering torn in the icy wind. Xandre didn't flinch. Whatever this dog thought he could do, he was sure it would be no problem for him to dodge.

Sure enough, Xandre handled the blue attacks with ease.  _Pathetic,_  he thought to himself.  _This dog thinks he's a Royal Guard when all his opponents have to do is stand still? Undyne, whoever she is, has depressingly low standards._

Once the blue blade passed harmlessly through his body, Xandre leapt forward with his own knife unsheathed. The dog scrambled to dodge, but he wasn't fast enough. None of the monsters had been. Like all the others who had dared cross Xandre's path, Doggo immediately dissolved.

Xandre fished the money from the guard dog's pockets. He no longer felt emotion after following through with his kills. They were only monsters, after all. Souls to be shattered, moving through the indifferent Underground.

Xandre turned to leave, his LV rising again as he absorbed the life force left over from killing Doggo. Blue magic, blue soul, blue eyes, white dust.

_Adrian_

"What's a star?" A small, vaguely garlic-shaped monster whispered, peering at Adrian with its pair of bright black eyes. "Can you touch it? Can you eat it? Can you  _kill_  it?" The monster paused, and blinked once. "Are  _you_  a star?"

"No, we're not stars. A star is like one of the crystals on the ceiling," Adrian tried, lost as to how to explain it to someone who had never even seen the sun or the moon. "Except it's actually a huge ball of fire, far, far away in space. It shines all the time and doesn't stop for billions and billions of years."

"That sounds so amazing. I want to see one someday," the monster murmured.

Adrian exchanged a look with Nyssa. "Who knows? Maybe you will."

_Nyssa_

In a secluded grotto behind where the curious monster stood, Nyssa and Adrian came across the Nice Cream man once again, leaning against his cart as lonely as he had been when they'd passed him days before.

"I relocated my store, but I'm still not getting any customers," the monster lamented. "Thankfully, I came up with an idea. Punch Cards! Every time you buy a Nice Cream, you can take a Punch Card from the box, and when you've got three, you can trade them for a free Nice Cream! That's sure to bring the customers back! Do you want any? Now only 25G! It's the frozen treat that warms your heart!"

The humans handed over 25 gold pieces each. They gratefully accepted their snacks and Punch Cards from the vendor before thanking him, depositing the cards in a box and leaving to eat the Nice Cream outside. This time, they followed a short path that led to a peninsula they had never seen before.

Several yards across the bioluminescent water was another bank. There, a small yellow bird crouched among tufts of dark grass. It chirped at them and fluttered its wings when it caught sight of them, and Nyssa waved back at it with her free hand.

_Adrian_

"So? Don't you have any wishes to make?" an Echo Flower standing to the side of the boardwalk asked as the humans passed.

"Hmm... just one. But it's kind of stupid," came the reply from the next one.

The path Nyssa and Adrian took led to a small island which featured a patch of tall grass surrounded by four glowing mushrooms. The long fronds swished aside when Adrian stuck his arm in, revealing a pair of velvety pink ballet shoes concealed among them. He pulled them out to show Nyssa.

"These must be from that girl," Nyssa murmured. "The one whose dress we saw in that room behind the waterfall." She frowned. "Let's leave them here. We have no need for them right now, and we can always come back later."

Adrian nodded agreement and deposited the shoes back where he had found them. He didn't see the water washing up onto the island to claim them, but it didn't matter. They weren't coming back to take the dead girl's shoes anyway.

When they were halfway down the other branch of the fork, their cell phone rang, and Nyssa fished it out of her pocket.

It was Papyrus.

"Hello! Remember when I asked you about clothes? Well, the friend who wanted to know has quite a...  _murdery_  opinion of you. But I bet you knew that already. And because you knew that, I told her what you told me you were wearing. Because I knew that of course, after such a  _suspicious_  question, you would obviously  _change your clothes!_  Such smart cookies. That way, you'd be safe and I wouldn't have lied. No betrayal anywhere. Being friends with everyone is easy!"

Before either human had a chance to interrupt his rapid-fire speech, Papyrus hung up, leaving them both considerably flustered. Adrian fought the urge to show his pure exasperation at Papyrus's clueless antics.

"It'd be inconvenient to change clothes now, and it wouldn't help much either," he muttered. "It's not like it'll be able to disguise the fact that we're human. And Undyne's seen us already, so what does it matter?"

The two of them continued on their way with their clothes very much the same, passing an Echo Flower that cried, "no, don't say that! I promise I won't laugh."

Finally, they stepped off the narrow walkways onto solid ground, carpeted by the usual layer of lush black grass. A sign was affixed to the wall there, seemingly a continuation of the ones that had chronicled the humans' and monsters' war back on the boardwalk. "Our ability to take their souls," the sign read. "This was what the humans feared."

The grass became thinner and thinner before it ended, leaving only a line of slick black stone over the water.

There was a splash behind them.

"Who's there?" Adrian demanded, whipping around. Cold sweat beaded on his brow. It was a pale tentacle, writhing as it rose from the depths. Nyssa saw it and bit back a cry, and Adrian knew she was thinking the same thing he was: it was behind them, blocking their way back. The only thing left to do was escape the other way.

They broke into a run as more of the tentacles began to emerge from the deceptively glassy surface of the water. There was an enormous disturbance ahead as something the same pale yellow shade as the tentacles slowly broke the surface: the massive onion-shaped head of a monster.

A monster that looked surprisingly benign. It smiled cheerily at the humans instead of attempting to eat them like Adrian had feared it would. "Hey... there... I noticed you were here," it called enthusiastically, its pasty cheeks blushing pink. "I'm Onionsan! Onionsan, y'hear!"

The humans kept walking, but that didn't stop Onionsan.

"You're visiting Waterfall, huh! It's great here, huh! You're loving it, huh! Me too–it's my Big Favorite!"

Although Adrian was trying to be patient with all the monsters he and Nyssa came across, he had to admit this one was seriously giving him a headache. And he hadn't even been listening to it talk for more than half a minute!

"Even though the water's getting so shallow here," Onionsan grunted as it scooted across the marsh floor to follow the humans. "I keep having to sit down all the time. Hey, at least that's better than moving to the city, and having to live in a crowded aquarium! Like... all my friends did," it added sadly. "And the aquarium's full, a-anyway, so there'd be no space for me... but that's okay, though, y'hear! Undyne's gonna fix everything, y'hear!" Adrian sensed the pendulum of its self-esteem in its voice, the way it would babble excitedly before mumbling dejectedly and going back to babbling again. He wondered just how lonely it would get here, in this corner of Waterfall.

"I'm gonna get out of here and live in the ocean, y'hear!"

With some measure of relief, Adrian saw the entrance to another cavern up ahead.

"Hey... there..." Onionsan said, finally losing steam and wiping a tentacle across its brow. "That's the end of this room. I'll see you around. Have a good time! In Waterfall..." it burbled as it sank back down into the watery cocoon of its home.

Adrian watched it go, before proceeding to the next room.

It was roughly rectangular with a pool of water in the center. Two passageways branched out from it, one much longer than the other, although he couldn't tell where either of them went.

Something that looked like an aquatic creature's blue-green fin created a disturbance in the stagnant water at the center of the room.

 _Not again,_  Adrian thought, just before a monster emerged and engaged them in battle. Her head was pale green, with a single strand of her cyan hair escaping from the rest to stick straight up from her head and appear like an anglerfish's lure. Her lower body seemed to be a different creature altogether–mottled gray and brown, Adrian could only describe it as something like a sea snail with spikes.

The monster hummed a short tune. Glowing white notes emerged from her mouth, drifting a little too close to the humans' souls.

Adrian made eye contact with her.

That was when he experienced something he never had before: a sudden flow of information about the monster he was looking at, dredged up from Wing's memory. Her name was Shyren, and her special ability was to sing a deadly song. Adrian thought for a moment and hummed a melody of his own. He had never heard it before, not in his life, but a part of him remembered it. Its melodic structure was simple, little more than a constant repetition of four notes on a minor scale with slight variations every two bars. Something about it was haunting yet eerily familiar.

A, B-flat, high F, B-flat, A again...

Shyren cocked her head to listen before she attempted to copy the melody. Notes wove erratically across the battlefield. Adrian and Nyssa dodged them with ease–battles were no problem for either of them anymore. Following Adrian's lead, Nyssa hummed something else. Her melody, composed of notes of varying length that ascended and descended, was longer and somehow reminded Adrian of a place. Someplace warm... no,  _hot..._ with swirling steam and churning clockwork...

As if they too recognized the song, monsters emerged from their hiding places with soft splashes of water here and there. They began to gather around where Adrian, Nyssa, and Shyren stood, entranced enough to be locked in place. Shyren seemed thrilled at the attention, and sang even louder than she had before.

Adrian and Nyssa left Shyren to her impromptu concert, their hopes higher than they had been in a long time. With Nyssa's magical mastery and Adrian's remembered background knowledge, it was going to be much easier for them to survive the Underground.

_We're lucky we have Wing._

_Xandre_

"Hello," the snowman in front of Xandre murmured. "I am a snowman. I cannot move. Traveller, if you could..."

Xandre frowned and took a piece of the snowman, leaving it with a considerable dent in its head.

"Oh me, oh my. What are you  _doing?_  Soon there won't be any of me left..."

He got another snowman piece.

"Stop... please..." what remained of the animated snow sculpture begged from where it now slumped on the ground, reduced to nothing but a chunk of snow with a carrot nose as Xandre took the last piece. Just as he had after all his other kills, he left wordlessly, his indifferent expression unchanged through the entire ordeal. Sensing that the magical snow would be useful in some way in the future, Xandre backtracked to the clearing where the box had been and left all three pieces inside.

"Xandre."

Xandre yelled aloud, spinning around, but nobody stood behind him. That brief period of bewilderment was enough for his brain to process the voice. Instead of coming from anywhere outside, it sounded from inside his own mind. He knew it all too well. Feminine, slightly cool and aloof, yet somehow mysterious in its lilt. The voice huffed, and Xandre could almost picture the girl attached to it rolling her eyes. "Wuss. It's just me. Chara."

"I'm just  _on edge._ And how are you talking to me now, anyway? I thought we could only converse in the void while I dream."

"It seems that your LV has grown to such a point that I can speak in your mind while you're awake," Chara replied, reminding Xandre of the disturbingly parasitic nature of her being. "Seven, is it?"

"Yes, seven, ever since my last kill. I think it was a Jerry."

"I think so. And Xandre, try talking to me without actually saying it out loud. Wouldn't want anyone to think you were talking to yourself, would you? I'd prefer for you to keep this private."

 _[Good point._   _Not like there'll be anyone left to hear me, if we can help it.]_

"That's true, Xandre. Anyway, this should make things much more convenient for the both of us, don't you think?"

 _[Yes.]_  Xandre decided to keep to himself his reservations about whether or not this had the potential to get very strange. Or distracting. Or just downright irritating.  _Chara, though... she makes me feel like I..._

He commanded himself to snap out of  _that_  train of thought as soon as it reared its head. He had no time for that. Not now. And neither did she.

 _[Then let's keep going,]_  he said to Chara instead.  _[The rest of Snowdin's monsters aren't exactly dusting one another for us.]_

"No, they certainly aren't."

And with that, Xandre and Chara–newly connected–pulled their knife out of its sheath and set off running across the powdery snow, a pair of relentless hunters tracking and killing their prey as one.


	33. It's Raining Right Here

_Nyssa_

"The northern room hides a great treasure," Adrian read aloud. Nyssa followed him into the room. It contained only a piano. Mounted to the wall was a sign that read, "a haunting song echoes through the corridors. Won't you play along? The first 8 are fine."

"What's  _that_  supposed to mean?" Nyssa wondered aloud.

"I'm guessing 'the first 8' means the first 8 notes of whatever song we're supposed to play," Adrian said. "As for the song, maybe we'll find it up ahead."

The two kept reading the signs along the walls as they walked down the eastern corridor.

 _This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster's soul. When a monster dies, its soul disappears._  ( _"Most_  of the time," Nyssa pointed out.) _And an incredible power would be needed to take the soul of a living monster._ _There is only one exception. The soul of a special species of monster called a "boss monster". A Boss Monster's soul is strong enough to persist after death, if only for a few moments. A human could absorb this soul. But this has never happened. And now it never will._

Adrian gasped sharply.

"Adrian? What is it?"

"Wing– I just remembered something," he explained. "Toriel and Asgore were the last living descendants of the only two Boss Monster families to survive the war. Their son, Asriel, was the last one ever to be born. And now that Toriel's been killed..."

"By  _Xandre,"_  Nyssa added in horror.

"Yes... Xandre could potentially have taken her soul moments before she died, making himself unbelievably powerful."

A wave of terror threatened to engulf Nyssa until she remembered the room with the gray door. "We saw all the souls of the Underground back in that creepy hallway," Nyssa reminded Adrian. "If Xandre managed to fuse with Toriel, he would've shown up as two souls instead of one. But only his soul was there."

For some reason, Adrian frowned slightly at that.

_Does he know something I don't?_

"That's good, then," Adrian said instead, and Nyssa figured this was yet another thing he planned to keep to himself.

_Adrian_

_Okay. So Nyssa doesn't know about Xandre's involvement with Chara, and she doesn't need to. At least not yet,_  Adrian decided. Something still held him back from revealing his connection to Chara.  _If we do come face to face with her eventually, this will be something I'll have to deal with on my own._

The dripping of water stopped him and Nyssa in their tracks. Secluded in a recess to the side of the hallway was a statue, its head bowed and its hands clasped in its lap. It was faceless and had a pair of elegant horns curving up from its head. Several smaller stone structures clustered at its feet. Adrian couldn't really tell what they were, but they seemed almost heart-shaped, and were dry to the touch despite the rain falling gently on the statue through a hole in the ceiling into some higher area of the Underground. It was as if the statue were poised protectively over them, covering them.

A curtain of water cascaded down from above at Adrian's right, blocking their view of whatever lay beyond the passage they walked down now. He could only see more darkness behind the falling water and wondered if it marked a boundary of the Underground.

Several umbrellas were arranged in a woven basket. "Take one," the sign beside it read, so Adrian pulled one out and opened it. There would certainly be more where the rain on the statue came from. Adrian was struck by a very strange idea.

"What if we put the umbrella on the statue? It's a weird thought, I know, but I have a feeling it'll do something."

Nyssa shrugged. "I don't know. But maybe keeping water off it will activate something."

The two humans walked back to where the statue squatted under the rain, and propped the opened umbrella in its arms so the raindrops would run off onto the ground. Almost immediately, there was a click from inside the statue, and a music box began to play a simple melody.

"Adrian, you're a genius." Nyssa said with a grin. She closed her eyes, committing the song to memory. "Got it. Let's go."

Back in the piano room, Adrian watched Nyssa sit down on the bench and put her hands to the keys. Neither of them had ever seen such a complex musical instrument before, let alone played one–music was frivolous when the main goal of a community was simply to survive, after all. But Nyssa seemed to take to playing the piano immediately.

C, G, F, C, E, E, F. Just seven notes were enough to trigger a rumbling sound from deep within the cave walls. Stone began to fall away from the far wall, revealing the gaping entrance to another cavern.

A red artifact had been placed on a pedestal to the far side. Adrian ran to it and looked at it in awe. It was perfectly spherical, the glistening scarlet shade of an enormous ruby, and was almost as large as a melon. When he looked into its crystalline depths, he could almost see the silhouette of a small furry animal romping and playing, but he shook that out of his head immediately. A dog, alive inside a crystal? Impossible.

"Woah," Nyssa murmured after a while.

"Yeah," Adrian agreed. "Come on, let's see if we can lift it up."

Both the humans strained to shift the crystal from its position. It was even heavier than Adrian had expected, and they were both sweating after getting it only an inch into the air. Nyssa looked at the pedestal and frowned. Adrian followed her gaze. There, where the base of the crystal had rested, were words embossed into the metal of the stand:  _You're carrying too many dogs._

Unable to take the strain any more, Adrian and Nyssa set the legendary artifact back down. "Too... many dogs?" Adrian panted. "What's  _that_  supposed to mean?"  
Right on cue, something yelped and began scrabbling from the inside of Adrian's pack. He cried out, practically yanking it off his back, and pulled it open. "What...?"  
Something white and fluffy bundled out of the pack, yapping excitedly. A dog. The same one that had stolen Papyrus's special attack back in Snowdin. The humans watched, dumbstruck, as the dog trundled up to the artifact. Dog and treasure disappeared into thin air.

"Did... did the dog just do that," Nyssa said disbelievingly a few seconds later.

"Yes, I believe it did," Adrian replied, putting his hand to his forehead as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. "It just... absorbed the artifact. How did it even get into my pack in the first place?"

"This  _is_  the Underground," Nyssa pointed out. "If hallways can appear and disappear out of nowhere, why not dogs and priceless artifacts?"

_Xandre_

_And why not monsters?_ Xandre thought to himself.  _[It's getting harder and harder to encounter them. Again.]_

"That's obviously because you're  _killing_  them," Chara snarked. "Consider this progress."

_[Whatever, Chara.]_

He pushed on into a new area of Snowdin, largely dominated by an ice rink that he struggled not to slip across. He passed a pair of sentry booths. "'His' and 'Hers'," Chara mused.

_[If that means at least two more monsters up ahead, I've got no problem with it.]_

"True."

Xandre kicked a snowball towards the hole in the ice out of boredom as he walked, causing a light blue flag to emerge. He didn't pay much attention to it.

Two dogs in black cloaks, carrying identical axes, cornered Xandre at the next snowy clearing, but he was ready for them. More than ready. He eyed the two of them as he tried to come up with a strategy. Which one did he kill first? It probably wouldn't matter much either way.

_[Chara? You pick.]_

"Okay, I dunno, the one on the right."

The dog on the right side–Dogaressa, the female–put up quite a fight alongside her mate, slightly more befitting a member of the Royal Guard (but not much more, in Xandre's opinion). But she was, of course, no match for a sufficiently determined human like Xandre. His soul might not have been made entirely of the magical substance like Chara's had been, but it was enough to make him a danger to the monsters he attacked.

He slipped under the mirrored attacks with ease, coming up unscathed and ready to send off an offensive maneuver of his own. All the while, the dog couple murmured sickly sweet things to one another. Although it was far from necessary, Xandre summoned Wing's powers to battle magic with magic. He had to admit he was probably only trying to impress Chara. The ghost girl herself gave no reaction.

"Take my wife... 's fleas," muttered Dogamy.

One more attack, and his beloved dissolved to dust right beside him. He fell to all fours, whimpering quietly over her remains and gathering her cloak in his paws. He forgot to defend himself when Xandre moved in for the kill.

And just like that, the loving couple's entire lives together were cut short.

_Nyssa_

Rain came down harder and harder, a thousand tiny crystals exploding against the pale green umbrella Nyssa and Adrian huddled under as they walked.

Nyssa's gaze strayed to her reflection in the puddles underfoot, and she gave a start. In place of her and Adrian was a spectral figure in a long black robe. The image dissolved immediately when her next footstep disturbed the water and splintered the silhouette into pieces. When she looked again, she was met with her usual mirror image.

"Yo, you guys got an umbrella?" Monster Kid called out cheerfully from where he had been standing under a rocky overhang. "Can I come? I've been stranded here since the rain started."

Before Nyssa or Adrian could say anything, the small monster darted under the umbrella with them. "Awesome! Let's go!"

Monster Kid scampered behind the humans as they walked, occasionally leaving the dry shelter of the umbrella to splash in puddles. "Man, Undyne is  _so_  cool," he chirped when they reached a bend in the path. "She beats up bad guys and _never_ loses. If I were a human, I'd wet the bed every night knowing she was gonna beat me up! Ha ha."

Nyssa and Adrian offered no comment, trying not to look at him too nervously.

"So, one time," the talkative child continued. "We had a school project where we had to take care of a flower. The king–we had to call him "Mr. Dreemurr"–volunteered to donate his own flowers. He ended up coming to school and teaching the class about responsibility and stuff. That got me thinking... how cool would it be if  _Undyne_  came to school!? She could beat up all the teachers!"

After a while, he paused thoughtfully. "Umm... maybe she wouldn't beat up the teachers. She's too cool to ever hurt an innocent person."

The rain petered off, and Nyssa closed the umbrella as she thought. So Undyne was a noble warrior, after all. That was a good thing. If she wasn't entirely merciless, maybe she and Adrian would be able to make her see reason.

The cavern ended, opening into another, far larger one. Nyssa, Adrian, and Monster Kid stepped past a pile of rocks into what was by far the most beautiful part of the Underground. Constellations of crystals glimmered on the dark cave ceiling above, casting a gentle light onto the ground, the rocks, and the city crowned by a shining palace in the distance.

"Wow," Nyssa murmured, taking in the sight of King Asgore's castle. It was simultaneously imposing and splendid, altogether breathtaking. Three lapis lazuli turrets tapered towards the sky, glimmering with the reflected light of a thousand crystal stars, atop a main building that seemed as if it had been carved out of a single enormous piece of marble. Even from where they stood, she could see the grand stairway that led up to the palace's majestic arching entrance. It was reminiscent of the entry room they had seen in the Ruins.

"I know, it's so cool, right?" Monster Kid said enthusiasically. "The king is so lucky. Just  _imagine_  living in a place that awesome!"

Nyssa gave Monster Kid a smile, and found herself thinking that the palace would look even grander bathed in the radiance of the sun above.

_Adrian_

The serene sound of a distant music box, its eerie song echoing through the corridors of Waterfall, filled Adrian with determination.

Monster Kid had given both humans a boost up a steep ledge somewhere behind, promising to rejoin them when he found another way through. Now they were here in yet another hallway, a boardwalk extending from it off into the darkness.

 _The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us,_  the continuation of the war story read on the wall.  _They attacked suddenly and without mercy. In the end, it could hardly be called a "war". United, the humans were too powerful, and us monsters too weak. Not a single soul was taken, and countless monsters were turned to dust._

As soon as Nyssa and Adrian stepped onto the wooden boards, the air temperature seemed to plummet several degrees, and their shadows grew longer. Nyssa shivered. From previous experience, she knew exactly what had caused that effect: Undyne was near. And there was nothing the humans could do but fend for their lives.

_Nyssa_

A large cyan circle appeared just in front of them, flaring with Undyne's magic.

And another.

And another.

All at the same time, spearheads pierced up through their centers before fading rapidly, and the shadows shifted to reveal the outline of a heavily armored warrior standing on another bridge just below them.

The humans didn't need to be told what to do. Just as they had before, they ran.

This time it was Adrian who got unlucky enough to fall. His foot caught on a stray board and he sprawled across the dock, one arm landing on a blue circle. Nyssa grabbed his other arm and tugged him to his feet just as the spearhead punched through. Terror glinting in both their eyes from the near miss, they ran again.

"Nyssa," Adrian whispered desperately as they dodged the attacks, "you can use Wingdings, can't you?"

"I don't know if I can remember anything that could help us," Nyssa worried. Just then, they reached a crossroads in the path, and Nyssa screamed inwardly. As if things couldn't get any worse, they now had to navigate a maze while Undyne's attacks got faster and closer together by the minute, all without Wing's help.

 _Something,_  she pleaded to the shard deep in her soul.  _Anything!_

Her hands were a blur as she signed the first spells her mind could get a hold of. Indigo symbols flew in all directions, most of them sparking harmlessly out of existence.  _Shield. Ensnare. Lock. Protect. Defend. Perplex. Direction._

_Direction!_

She bit back a victorious yell as the correct path through the maze was highlighted in blazing Wingdings. Adrian was about to say something, but Nyssa stopped him. "Save it," she said with a grin. Once again, Wing had saved them from Undyne.

They crossed numerous intersections as they dodged Undyne's spears, and Nyssa realized that if it weren't for Wing's magic, there was no telling how long it'd have taken for them to find the exit. Other paths twisted and looped back on themselves, abruptly terminating in dead ends and dropping off into the abyss below. Nyssa felt her heart slam when she realized the highlighted path ended too. There was nothing beyond it.

"No..." she murmured. "How is it possible that we were led straight to a dead end?"

She dived to the side to avoid a spear and straightened up again to face Adrian.

"What now?" he whispered.

The clanging of metal grew louder and louder, closer and closer. They were face to face with Undyne.

With a flick of her wrist, the head of the Royal Guard sent three spears streaking down in between herself and the humans, and the section of the bridge that they were standing on came loose. Nyssa couldn't even cry out before the sensation of free fall stole her voice.

Darkness.


	34. Fallen

_Memory…?_

Golden flowers, soft underneath her battered body.

Footsteps.

A voice.

"It sounds like it came from over there…"

More sounds, the world a white blur. Something moved in front of her. She had been spotted.

"You've fallen down, haven't you?"

_Where am I?_

"Howdy! What's your name?"

A furry shape shifted in and out of her vision as her eyes struggled vainly to focus. She was dizzy, so dizzy, and more confused than she'd ever been in her life… But somehow, something came back to her. Two syllables. Her name.

"I… I'm Chara."

"'Chara'? That's such a nice name! My name is…"

And everything was swallowed up by blinding white light.

_Adrian_

Her name was the first thing out of Adrian's mouth. "Chara," he sputtered.  _Just what in the world happened to you?_ He had to figure out what was going on with Chara. Chara the fallen human, the girl who was somehow not quite dead.

Her still body in the monster child's arms…

Her soul glowing as one with Xandre's…

And now this…

"Chara, what the  _hell?"_

_I can't deal with this right now. Maybe not ever. Chara, what in the world am I supposed to do?_

"Did you see that?" Nyssa mumbled, raising her head. "Last time I checked, Wing wasn't a girl named Chara… but heck, we can't deal with that right now, huh? Where are we, anyway?"

Internally grateful Nyssa had decided not to linger on Chara, Adrian wrinkled his nose. " _Smells_  like a garbage dump…"

"Let's find out," Nyssa replied.

Shadows shifted upon shadows. A monster was murmuring to itself as it rearranged the trash around it into perfectly symmetrical piles. "Still too… filthy…" it lamented, straightening a plastic bag. It was so absorbed in its task that it ignored Nyssa and Adrian as they passed by.

Among the trash drifting in the dump were an empty desktop computer and a cooler that happened to have two packages of freeze-dried food in it. Nyssa took the food and put it in her pack.

Adrian leaned down to scoop a DVD case out of the water ahead of him. He recognized this case. This had been Alphys's favorite show when she was younger, and many times Wing would walk in on her watching it instead of doing her lab work. Adrian remembered the chiding, the apologies, the laughter afterwards. He had been like a father to her. More than that. A father, and a mentor, and a friend. This DVD case was more than just trash–it was a memory. A strange, forgotten relic of a life gone past.

"Look," Nyssa said. "Over there. It's a dummy, just like the one we saw back in the Ruins."

Sure enough, a training dummy drifted in the water. Something about it held Adrian in place. Was it just him, or was there something almost sentient in its crudely stitched-on eyes? He shivered and turned from its beady gaze, convinced it was following him as he walked away.

There was a splash behind them. Adrian whipped around to see the dummy moving, writhing where it floated. Its drifting pieces knitted themselves back together as he watched to form a single figure that hovered about a foot in the air. Those beady eyes glared back at him, flashing with a single emotion: pure rage.

_Xandre_

The forest was strangely silent as Xandre searched for something. Anything. Feathers, footprints, a flash of color against the pure white–even the smallest indication would be enough to give away a monster's hiding place.

But nobody came.

He passed a puzzle, incomplete though the spikes that barred the exit were deactivated. A green tendril held the button down.

_[Flowey.]_

"That weed, huh?" Chara remarked. "Isn't he the one who said he had a plan to become powerful and all that?"

_[That's the one. I'm not saying I mind the extra help, but if he proves himself to be a problem…]_

"We'll get rid of him, all right," Chara confirmed.

Another puzzle. Was it just him, or did the shape vaguely resemble Papyrus's face? He stepped over the retracted spikes, their holes already beginning to fill up with snow.

Xandre groaned. Papyrus and Sans were standing there in front of him, again. How did they manage to get everywhere before he did? The brothers stood across a darkened grid, a boxy machine by their side.

"You're going to love this puzzle!" Papyrus yelled out enthusiastically. "It was made by the great–"

Xandre didn't have time for this. He took a cautious step onto the grid, felt nothing happen, and continued to walk across it.

"Sans! Help! He keeps walking right through my puzzles! He's supposed to let me explain them, then baffle him with dangerous japes!"

"Well, maybe he just doesn't like japes," Sans replied with a shrug.

"Everyone likes japes," Papyrus cried indignantly.

"What about Undyne? Doesn't she hate puzzles?"

"Yes, but she  _loves_  japes!"

"Uhh… that makes sense…?"

"Human! What do you think? Puzzles, or japes?"

_[How in the world did Wing even raise them both without losing his mind?]_

"Xandre, just don't have kids," Chara muttered.

Papyrus gave him the side-eye. "Okay. This is the part where you either agree or disagree, and we say something great in response," he stage-whispered. When Xandre said nothing, he threw up his hands in irritation. "Why don't you just do this puzzle yourself!" He yelled behind him as he stomped away through the snow.

"Hey, maybe puzzles might be fun, if you  _tried them,"_  Sans said.

Xandre looked back at the skeleton mutely and walked away.

_Nyssa_

The newly reconstructed dummy plunged into the water and exploded out feet in front of Nyssa and Adrian. Adrian yelled and stumbled back, slipping on a plastic bag just below the surface and falling backwards. He was soaked and terrified when Nyssa pulled him back out.

The dummy cackled, a slash across its foam face forming a distorted leer. "Too intimidated to fight me, huh?"

"You… you're just a dummy," Adrian sputtered. "How…?"

"I am a  _ghost_  that lives inside a dummy," it corrected him irritatedly. "My cousin used to live in a dummy, too. Until  _you came along!"_

"We didn't do anything!"

"Yes, you did," the dummy snarled. "When you talked to her, she thought she was in for a nice chat, but the things you  _said!_ Horrible. Shocking.  _Unbelievable!_  It spooked her right out of her dummy!"

Nyssa thought back to the Ruins. Toriel had had them talk to a training dummy, she remembered now. What was it that she and Adrian had said? Nothing scandalous, she was sure of that. They'd pretended to have had a fight so they could make up with it, which had pleased Toriel.

"Disgusting humans! I'll scare your souls right out of your bodies!"

The middle of the dummy's body tore. It didn't seemed bothered by this, and continued to rant while both halves moved through the air erratically.

"Mad Dummy. It's a ghost, so any physical or magical attacks will fail," Adrian said aloud. It sounded as if he were reciting that off Wing's memory.

"Futile. Futile.  _Futile!"_ the dummy yelled, summoning a ring of tiny dummies. They released balls of chaotic magic all at once, missing Nyssa and Adrian and flying in all directions. Nyssa silently thanked Wing for his battle skills.

There was a  _thwack._  The mad dummy had hit itself with one of its own attacks. "Oww, you dummies!" it complained. "Watch where you're aiming your magic attacks!" When it saw she was watching, it turned its glare to Nyssa. "Hey, you. Forget I said anything about magic!" It bobbed nervously through the air.

This was it. This was how to defeat the Mad Dummy.

"I'll… I'll defeat you and take your souls!" it screeched, becoming more and more depraved by the minute. It bossed around its minions even as they fired their bullets, which again missed. A good fourth of them struck the dummy. "I guess  _that'll_  avenge my cousin! I'll use your souls to cross the barrier! I'll stand in the window of a fancy store!"

A new spell came to Nyssa's mind and she signed  _decoy._  A storm of magic flew towards a cluster of Wingdings in front of the dummy, its own strategy backfiring as the two separate pieces of its body shuddered from impact. "Everything I want… will be mine!" it screamed, flying in an erratic figure-eight. Dummies began firing bullets in earnest, all of them missing. "I've had enough of you!" the Mad Dummy cried. "Failures. Failures.  _Failures!_ You're all fired! Hahaha… now you'll see my  _true_  power: relying on people who  _aren't_  garbage!"

Mechanical whirrs filled the garbage dump as it said this. "Dummy bots! Magic missile," the dummy ordered. Five heavily armored dummy minions sprung up at the sound of its voice, each one of them releasing a tracker missile. Nyssa dodged them as best she could and signed furiously all the while.

"I'm starting to get tired," she muttered, pulling Adrian out of the way of a missile. Spent, it lost track of him and flew aimlessly away, loudly crashing into a meticulously arranged pile of trash. Nyssa glimpsed the turtle creature immediately shuffling to clean it up.

Glowing symbols swirled around Nyssa, condensing into forms and arrays as they followed the commands her hands had signed. To a watcher from afar, it might've seemed strangely mesmerizing, a bizarrely choreographed dance.

"Dummy Bots! Try again! You're  _awful!"_

Nyssa's Wingdings deflected the missiles, sending more and more of them flying. Some of them exploded against the Mad Dummy's cloth body. It glared into a shattered mirror and looked back at her with the exact same expression.

"Dummy Bots! Final attack!"

In a burst of rage, the dummy unleashed all of its attacks at the same time. One of the dummy's missiles knocked the breath out of Nyssa and she tumbled, a jagged piece of metal ripping a long gash across her hand. The soul mark there flickered and faded. For a second she stared at the injury, horrified.

Panic flashed in Adrian's eyes as he pulled her back up. Almost immediately, the two of them ducked again. Ten missiles almost hit them at once, and seeing them just miss her, Nyssa suddenly felt thankful she had been struck by just one. Struggling to sign one-handed, she summoned a feeble shield over herself and Adrian.

The last missile banged against their shield and disappeared.

"No… no way!" the dummy yelled. "These guys are even  _worse_  than the other guys. Who cares. Who cares.  _Who cares?_  I don't need friends! I've got  _knives!"_

A flashing dagger appeared in the air next to him as the Wingdings shield faded. Adrian grabbed Nyssa's good hand and pulled her out of the way.

"I'm out of knives! But it doesn't matter! You can't hurt me, and I can't hurt you! You'll be stuck fighting me…" The realization hit it and it froze, wide-eyed. "Forever… forever…  _forever!_ Hahahahaha!"

Just as it began raving again, a shower of droplets began to fall on it, each one causing it to cringe in pain. "Wh… what the heck is this? Ergh, acid rain!? Forget it, I'm outta here." The dummy bobbed away through the air, new gashes bleeding cotton, leaving Nyssa and Adrian standing there. Hot blood dripped into the water, and Nyssa knew that blazing pain would set in as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

The sound of sniffling grew louder before a ghost materialized into existence: Napstablook, the last monster Nyssa had expected to see. Had she not been wounded, she might even have run over and hugged the ghost in her gratitude.

"Sorry, I interrupted you, didn't I?" he whimpered, casting a glance at the fleeing dummy. "Oh no… I just wanted to say hi… oh no... you're injured... did I do that by accident...? oh n–"

"Napstablook," Nyssa said before the ghost could begin apologizing profusely again. "Napstablook, did you know that you just saved us both?"

"Me? Save you…?" the ghost whispered dubiously.

"Yes," Adrian replied. "You just saved our lives. You don't have to be sorry about that. Thank you."

If ghosts could blush, Napstablook would be doing it right now. He looked down bashfully. "Oh… in that case… you're… welcome? I'll be going home now… feel free to come with me, if you want… but no pressure… I understand if you're busy… but I can try and heal you... do what I can..."

"I would appreciate that very much. We're not busy," Nyssa told him gently, "and we would be more than happy to see your home. Lead the way."


	35. Reminisce

_Adrian_

The music reached Adrian's ears before anything else did, a simple tune from a CD player. Next, strangely, was the smell: musty yet comforting, carrying with it the faintest whiff of food. The roof of Napstablook's room was much lower than Adrian would expect for it to be, judging by the height of the house, and he figured only ghosts could float through the ceiling to the second floor.

Now that he had reached a place of calm, the tiredness adrenaline kept back came rushing in at once.

"Napstablook, do you mind if we stay the night here?" Nyssa asked, as if sharing his mind.

"Oh… but you'll have to sleep on the floor… I'll get some extra blankets…"

"That's fine," Nyssa replied warmly. She gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you so much for your kindness."

_Xandre_

Ahead was a snuffling, a crunching of cloven hooves against the snow, and Xandre fought to keep down his triumph when he rounded a sharp bend to find a monster standing on the mountainside. Puffs of mist from its nostrils dissipated in the icy air as it turned in one fluid motion. Muscles rippled beneath its glossy pelt, and Xandre remembered burying his knife in the flank of a deer not so different from this monster in front of him now.

The kill opportunity was almost too perfect–he already had it cornered between himself and a steep wall of sedimentary rock.

It didn't take much to do his prey in. It dissolved right there on the mountainside, red-brown fur crumbling into sparkling dust against the pale snow. Xandre left its remains behind to explore the eerily glowing cave ahead of him.

In a tunnel within the cliffside, something saw; something took notice. The creature darted away from its peephole and scurried down a honeycomb of passages with its discovery tight in its mind's eye, racing for Snowdin Town.

_Nyssa_

"There…" Napstablook said, straightening up. "You should be all right now…"

Nyssa had never been able to look at wounds too long, but even she had to watch the green tears Napstablook had shed touch the gash in her hand. She gritted her teeth, expecting stinging pain at the very least, but she felt almost nothing as her skin came back together and repaired itself.

"Thank you, Napstablook," she breathed. Magical healing had never ceased to amaze her. She vowed that when– _if_ –she got out of this alive, she'd have to learn more about how it worked.

That thought stopped her in her tracks.

_Magical science? If I get out of this alive?_

So somewhere deep in her mind, she'd assumed she was going to stay with the monsters after this, didn't she?

Nyssa suddenly wanted to kick herself.

All this time, she'd been so absorbed in her own journey, her newfound friendship with Adrian and all the monsters they'd met along the way, that she'd barely even spared a thought for home. Had she really so quickly replaced her parents and Ray with characters from the life of a monster she never even knew? Yes, her life since she'd fallen down had been a nonstop influx of new information, new events, new faces. But her family…

How could she forget them?

"I have a brother," Nyssa found herself saying out loud. Napstablook and Adrian both turned to face her, surprise glinting in their eyes. Surprise from what? The fact that she'd suddenly spoken? The reminder of what they had left behind?

"A… brother?"

"Yes. His name is Ray." Nyssa pushed on, the backs of her eyes beginning to sting. "He's two years older than me, and we never really got along too well at the best of times. I thought he was snarky. He said I was annoying. But I guess it's true that deep down we loved each other, because he talked to me right before I ran away." She bit her lip. "He didn't stop me. Just told me he thought he'd give me a chance. And he… he said he wanted me to come back."

_Two weeks. I've never been away from home so long._

"I'm sure Ray still cares very much about you," Adrian murmured. "I can't pretend to know what it's like, to have somebody there for you all the time like that." A shadow flitted across his face. "But if how the other villagers treat their brothers and sisters means anything, I can promise you he wants to be. And after all this ends…"

"But what if it doesn't?"

"Excuse me?"

"What if this  _doesn't_  end?" Out of nowhere, Nyssa felt like screaming, the overwhelming past two weeks threatening to engulf her in one fell swoop. "Adrian, what if we signed our own death warrants the second we jumped down here? We might never go home. Never see our families again."

"You think I haven't thought about this too, every time we weren't running for our lives?"

A dark feeling gnawed on her insides when she realized  _she_  hadn't.

"I miss my family, too," Adrian added. "I never said goodbye to my parents. Of course I hope I'll find them again one day, but Nyssa… we've dedicated ourselves to this. We both felt the Underground calling us, didn't we? We've learned so much here. Made so many new friends. And the people back home are no longer our only family, whether you like it or not. We have a connection, a  _commitment,_  to the Gasters and all of monsterkind that we can't just ignore. Maybe we didn't choose to be part of Sans and Papyrus's lives. But they–and everyone else–need us now. Ugh, Nyssa, I know I probably sound stupid right now, but just…"

"No, you're right." She sighed, shook her head. The fight drained out of her as quickly as it had come. This would come up again, she was sure, but for now she was just weary–of Adrian, of herself, of all this. "You're right. Now that we're here, we have to finish what Wing started."

_Memory._

_Something shoved Nyssa hard from behind, and she yelped just before she tumbled into a mud puddle. She scrambled back up immediately, dirt caked in her hair, and sent a glare in her brother's direction._

_"I know you did it!" she yelled at his back as he sprinted away gleefully. He gave no reply, but she could've sworn his shoulders were shaking in laughter._

_/_

_Fall leaves carpeted Chara's grave. Their vibrant oranges and yellows gave way to dry brown death, lifting into the air and swirling on eddies as short-lived as they were. They crunched with Adrian's every footstep as he approached to kneel down and place his hand on the ground in front of her tombstone. He knew there was no body buried under there–since the monster child had refused to let go of her, the underground land where he went to die must have been her true final resting place. This stone had only been placed here in her memory, but he could almost swear he felt the pulsing of her soul still deep inside her._

_Leaves rustled as his mother approached behind him. A single tear splattered at her feet._

/

" _Ray, apologize to your little sister," Nyssa's mom said sternly, hand firm on her nine-year-old son's arm._

_"Sorr-ee," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Not!" he mouthed as soon as their mother wasn't looking. Nyssa crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at him._

_/_

_In a rare gesture of affection, Adrian's mother wrapped her arm around him and gave him a tight hug. "I wish we'd all known better about Chara. I wish_ you'd  _gotten to know her," she whispered, and it was only when she shuddered while she held him that Adrian realized she was crying. He held tight to her, squeezed back. He wished he'd known her, too._

_What kind of brother wouldn't?_


	36. The Calm Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild sin warning. You have been... warned. (There will be at least one moderate sin warning in the upcoming chapters, but never in this story will there be anything more severe than that.) To put it in perspective, I'd rate the worst parts of this chapter a TwoBoden if you go by the Boden Scale of NSFW and 1 and a half woshuas if you go by the Woshua Scale.
> 
> NSFW Range in Shattered: 0 - 2 1/3 Woshuas; Zero - ThreeBoden (although ThreeBoden is a stretch and I HIGHLY doubt anything will get anywhere near that bad)

_Xandre_

Almost as soon as his eyes closed, Xandre opened them again, and noted with satisfaction that he had ended up in the void as expected.

"Chara?"

There was no response from the blackness, and Xandre felt panic worm its way into him. Everywhere he looked, he could've sworn something else was staring back. The void promised malevolence, darker forces beyond his control, circling just outside his almost nonexistent field of vision. At least Chara was a denizen of the dark he trusted, because what other choice did he have?

 _And because you like having her around,_ a part of him taunted.

 _Shut up,_  he told it.

"Chara?" he called again, desperately trying to keep the terror out of his voice. "Chara, are you there?"

"Boo!" a girl yelled from behind him. His heart jolted. He couldn't keep down a loud curse when he whipped around and found Chara there, doubled over with laughter. "You actually fell for it," she giggled. "You really are an idiot–"

Xandre punched Chara in the shoulder. "Oh, stop talking, will you?" Even as he said that, there was no way to hide his mirth.

She looked up, a wicked grin on her face. "You're going to regret that," she promised, just before she tackled him. Unprepared, Xandre was immediately bowled over by her weight. He struggled to retaliate, but it came out as more of a yelp and a flailing of limbs. "Are you sorry yet?" Chara crowed. "Are you sorry?"

It occurred to Xandre that he and Chara were roughhousing like children–they were both almost adults; did they have no dignity?–but he brushed the notion aside.

And then a newer, stranger thought came to him. The realization that this playful tussle had placed Chara on top of him. Her face was inches from his, the lack of warmth from her huffs of laughter still raising goosebumps on his arm. It was closer than the two of them had ever been before.

As if she had realized this at the same time, Chara tensed, about to turn away in embarrassment. Suddenly overcome with an inexplicable yearning for her, Xandre slid a hand to the back of her neck and pulled her ever so slightly closer. There she was–the warmth, the softness of her skin, the whisper of her hair against the back of his hand. In the corner of Xandre's mind, something told him  _this is wrong, this isn't supposed to be happening._

Yes, Chara was certainly a captivating character. And yes, Xandre felt  _attracted_  to her, more than he had ever been towards any other person. So what was the ominousness that lurked just below the surface? Lost in Chara's brown gaze, he didn't hesitate to push it away.

Here and now; this was what mattered. What mattered was that he felt her body against his, inexplicably full of life despite her lack of a true physical form or even a soul. What mattered was the mystery in her that Xandre wanted to grasp and hold tight to himself. To understand and discover.

"Wha– Xandre?" she sputtered in surprise. She stared at him, but didn't make a move to push him away. "Xandre…?" she whispered. "What are you thinking?"

 _You are about to do something highly irrational,_  Xandre's internal voice screamed at him,  _and you should definitely stop right no–_

Before he had a chance to regret it, Xandre took the plunge and kissed her. Her lips were the tangy sweet of cinnnamon and chocolate, but underneath those he could just taste something else. Something bitter and hard to place. Her skin smelled of it too–the smallest whiff almost unnoticeable underneath the scents home-baked and garden-grown, but undoubtably there.

The first things he saw when he pulled away were Chara's brown eyes, huge and incredulous. "Did you just–"

"Kiss you? Yes. I did."

"Why, Xandre?" Chara managed.

"Because–" Xandre swallowed hard. "I… I think that's something I would've regretted  _not_  doing."

_Adrian_

"Wa ha ha! You there! Yeah, you two kids! I got some neat junk for sale!"

"Huh?"

"O'er here, in the grotto!"

Adrian looked up and met the eye of an old turtle monster dressed as an explorer. He was crouched over the counter, peering through a cracked magnifying glass. Behind him was a glittering treasure trove of Waterfall crystals. The bare spots on the wall formed  _that symbol_  again: a winged circle above three triangles.

"That's the symbol on Toriel's dress. And Lesser Dog's shield. And the door in Snowdin," Nyssa murmured.

"Hey," Adrian replied, beginning to look through the merchandise in case any of it could prove useful. Wing's memories provided the turtle's name, Gerson. He had already been old in Wing's time–Adrian wondered just how much he had seen. "That's the Delta Rune, isn't it? Over there on the wall?"

"Delta Rune?" Nyssa wondered aloud.

"Obviously! Wa ha ha. What've they been  _teachin'_  you kids? It's the emblem of the Kingdom of Monsters! Ol' King Fluffybuns couldn't name for beans, am I right?"

"The Delta Rune is the emblem of the monsters, and it's been around for a long time," Adrian explained to Nyssa, who still looked confused. "It's lost its original meaning, although all we–they–know is that the triangles symbolize the monsters in the Underground, and the winged circle is…?"

He hesitated, and looked to Gerson for help. The turtle guffawed. "Somethin' else," he said to Nyssa. She stared at him. "Most monsters think it's the 'angel'. You know, from that ol' prophecy? 'An angel who has seen the surface will return, and the Underground will go empty.' Lately, the people've been taking a bleaker outlook. Callin' that circle the 'Angel of Death'. A harbinger of doom, waitin' to 'free' us from this mortal realm."

Adrian's blood turned to ice in his veins.

"'Angel of Death'? As in… a murderer… committing  _genocide?"_  Nyssa whispered. Though she tried to hide it, Adrian saw her tremble.

"I dunno, kid," Gerson laughed. "Don't let my ramblin' scare ya! My advice is don't worry 'bout it. When  _I_ see that little circle, I jus' think it looks neat!"

Adrian swallowed hard. Here was a monster with no idea what was coming. What he would be up against.

Just how much didn't the monsters know?

"Gerson…"

Adrian knew he couldn't outright tell Gerson the truth–it'd make him and Nyssa sound crazy for sure. But the least he could do was warn him.

"I know you probably don't believe in the prophecy, but be careful. Weird things are happening in Snowdin."

"Weird things, huh?" Gerson squinted at him. "Kid? You're confusin' me. What things?"

"It's really nothing good," Nyssa replied. "Look. You're a shopkeeper. You know pretty much everybody in Waterfall, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good. If anything seems out of the ordinary in a bad way, tell them to get out of here and evacuate towards the palace. You really won't regret that."

"Can't be that bad, can it?" Gerson scoffed. "Besides, we've got Undyne. She's kind of a local hero around here. Got all the way to the top of the Royal Guard with her grit and Determination alone! Actually, she came around just earlier, askin' about kids like you. I'd get outta here if I were you–and buy some stuff. It might just save your hide!"

_Nyssa_

There was a scuffling ahead of them before a small creature bundled out, squealing eagerly when it caught sight of the humans. "hOI! I'M Tem!" it cried out eagerly, bouncing up and down. Was it  _vibrating?_

A tuft of the monster's fur floated loose and drifted in front of her nose, making her sneeze. " _Who_  are you?"

"tEM is here to see humans!" the creature answered. It didn't sound even vaguely threatening–high-pitched and squeaky, it sounded the way Nyssa imagined a mouse would if it could talk. "Awwwww!" it squealed, running closer. "Humans so CUUUUTE! I wants to pet u!"

"Um. Okay?" Adrian muttered, beginning to back away. The creature jumped on Nyssa before she could react, knocking her over. She laughed nervously–she wasn't hurt, but with her nose so close to its fur, she began to feel more than a little uncomfortable. She sneezed again.

Adrian struggled to take hold of the Temmie's body, but it wriggled out of his grasp again and again before he could pull it off Nyssa. "Please don't tell me you have allergies," Adrian muttered. "Stop wiggling!" he added to the Temmie now captive in his arms. It squealed in protest.

Nyssa sat up and took one ragged breath, instantly breaking down in a coughing fit. "Didn't think I'd be allergic, but… I don't feel too good."

"Tem is much sorry!" the Temmie squeaked against Adrian's chest. "Tem not know! Human forgive Tem?"

Nyssa coughed once. "Yeah… sure… Tem, where did you come from?"

"tEMMIE VILLAGE!" the small monster crowed, finally escaping Adrian and bounding back onto the grass. It puffed out its chest. "Temmie sell good stuffs! U shud check out TEM SHOP!"

"Might be useful," Nyssa pointed out. "Although… an entire  _village_ of those things…? I'll be more of a mess than that Temmie's grammar." At the Temmie's indignant squeak, Nyssa allowed, "sorry."

"Is your village close?" Adrian asked. The Temmie bobbed its head and flicked its tail towards the darkness behind him. It seemed proud to be a guide.

"I  _could_  go with Tem," he mused. "If you… What if Undyne..."

"If anything goes wrong, I'll just shout for you," Nyssa replied, more abruptly than she had expected. "I can handle being alone here for a while," she added, more softly. "We both can."

_Adrian_

Adrian was immediately greeted by a chorus of "hOI, I'm Tem, and this is my friend Tem!"s when he stepped into the lit section of the cave. His eyes had grown accustomed to the semi-darkness of the glowing mushroom room, and he blinked several times.

The village was positively thronging with Temmies.

"tEM shoP tHAt waY!" his pint-sized guide squeaked, scampering towards a cave entrance helpfully labelled with an enormous exclamation mark.

"Tem… WATCH EGG!" a Temmie bragged, cradling a hard-boiled egg in its front paws. "Eg… wil HATCH! Tem… PROUD PARENT!"

"Mushroom dance, mushroom dance, whatever could it mean?" a blue mushroom sang. "It symbolizes my inner torment, trapped here by my hyphae. My struggle to pull away. My struggle to escape. But, alas, to no avail."

Adrian must have been turning and staring at everything he passed, thoroughly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of the village, because the Temmie guiding him ran back over to him and positively shoved him towards the shop.

"hOI! Welcome to… TEM SHOP!" the taller Temmie standing behind the makeshift counter–an overturned cardboard box with the shop name painted on in blue and yellow letters–cried. "We has much stuffs! Like dis! tEM flake! EXPENSIV Tem flake!"

Ignoring the packets of colored construction paper the shopkeeper Temmie was shoving at him, Adrian looked up. A full suit of chainmail armor hung behind the counter, a striking blue-green copper flame outshining any of the other merchandise in the store. Something so valuable was out of place among the ratty furniture and dusty old socks–it was clearly worth more than the entire rest of the store combined.

"What's that?" Adrian asked, pointing at the armor.

"Tem armor so gOODs!" the Temmie crowed. "Any battle becom! A EASY victories! But, hnn, tem think… if u use armors, battles wouldn b a challenge anymores!"

"Wait, seriously?" Adrian sputtered.

 _It's true,_  Wing's memory confirmed.  _Temmie Armor is one of the strongest types of armor ever created in the Underground. The Temmie species may lack certain… language skills, but in the times of the Great War of Humans and Monsters, they were extremely skilled craftswomen._

"But… tem not redies," the shopkeeper mused. "tEM seekings in higher educashun! That way tem will be of learn to sell such good stuffs! But tem have no monies…"

"Temmie."

"Yesh?"

"What if we helped you?"

_Xandre_

Stillness.

Xandre forged ahead, glittering dust shaken off his clothes with every step and settling into the virgin snow. It was eerie how quiet Snowdin Forest had become. Something about all the silence and the cold was like a blank canvas on which Xandre allowed his thoughts to play out.

A flashing knife and blood and dust and  _Chara Dreemurr Chara Dreemurr Chara Dreemurr._ Her body pressed to his, his lips on hers, together in the void, so wrong yet so right at the same time. Chara had gotten over her surprise quickly after he'd kissed her, and she'd even done it back. Xandre closed his eyes for a moment, wanting every moment of their first kiss etched into his mind. There was no going back now. She knew how he felt about her, and he knew how she felt about him.

Their relationship wasn't all about their interdependence anymore.

Had it ever been?

He trekked through the clearing of snow poffs, any sign of their being checked coated by fresh powder, and neared the edge of the cliff to find a rope bridge. It swung soundlessly with the icy wind, planks untrodden by roaming feet. He took one cautious step onto it, shoe sinking into the considerable layer of new snow that had piled onto each plank. The rope strained briefly, letting out a creak into the icy air that, in Snowdin's silence, sounded deafening. Xandre froze.

But nobody came.

Each step of the way to Snowdin Town, Xandre couldn't help flinging a wary look back. Then he told himself to remember the feeling that hung in the air. It was the calm before the storm, all of the Underground waiting with bated breath for the first rainfall.

 _He_  had done this.  _He_  would be the rainfall. There was nothing for him to fear.

_[Do you feel it?]_

"Yes, Xandre," Chara replied empathically. "It's about time you realized just how much we can do together." She let a giggle escape.

When he heard the sound of Chara's voice, Xandre could almost picture her sitting there in front of him back in the infinite darkness of the void. He could picture a mischievous smile working its way onto her face as she leaned closer to divulge her latest plan, bobbed brown hair swinging forward ever so slightly and brushing against her blushed cheeks. It was strange how her every smallest movement left him entranced.

Chara Dreemurr was an enigma, but she was  _his_  enigma, and Chara was certainly one mystery he wanted to solve.


	37. The Storm (Part 1)

_Adrian_

Adrian couldn't keep the grin off his face when he slapped one thousand gold's worth of coins onto the Temmie's cardboard counter. He and Nyssa had finally been able to raise it after running what felt like a million laps to Gerson's shop and back. "It's for your coll–"

"Woa!" she interrupted with a shriek and lunged for it, scooping it up in her paws. "Thas A LOT of muns…" she murmured. "Can tem realy acepts…"

"It's yours," Adrian replied. "We agreed to pay for your scholarship in return for the Temmie Armor. Remember?"

"OKs!" the shopkeeper gushed. "Tem go to colleg and make u prouds! Culd be whil before Tem is back, dou…"

"We'll wait," Adrian replied. He wondered why he felt so disappointed–after all the effort he and Nyssa put in, the two of them could at least wait for her. But every moment without the armor was another moment they were vulnerable to Undyne, and who knew? Maybe one of those moments would be their last.

He went back to tell the news to Nyssa, who replied, "that's pretty great." Then immediately after, "what's next?"

If he were to be honest with himself, Adrian was miffed that those three words were all Nyssa had said about their success. She'd never thanked him or even acknowledged the fact that both their efforts had been needed. But risking an argument, especially over something so minor, would be illogical. He let it slide and told her he wanted to go farther into Waterfall.

As Adrian walked, his thoughts went to his family and Xandre, but always they circled back to what had become their focus. His sister,  _his sister…_

Her birthday fell only two days before his, on September the fifteenth, and Adrian remembered the feeling of hollowness in his home the day she would've turned twenty-nine–mere days before Wing's reemerging memories pulled him into this whole mess. According to what his parents had said about her, she'd already been able to care for herself by the time she went missing. Still, the notion that Xandre might do something to his sister made him see red.

His fury consumed so much of his thoughts that he wasn't brought back to reality until Nyssa tugged at his arm to get his attention. The tunnel was dark now, save from a single softly glowing Echo Flower.

Silence above, below, in every direction.

Then the flower whispered two words. Softly, innocently, like a child divulging a secret.

"Behind you."

_Nyssa_

Undyne regarded the humans coldly for a moment. She didn't move. Didn't speak.

"Seven," she finally said. "Seven human souls. With that much power, King Asgore Dreemurr will become a god. With that power, he will finally be able to shatter the barrier and take the surface back from your race, repaying them the pain and suffering they inflicted on us. Understand? You are my enemies. With your deaths, we will all go free. This is your only chance for redemption. Give me your souls, or I'll tear them from your bodies myself–and I will not spare you humans any mercy."

On the outside, Nyssa tried her best to meet Undyne's glare with one of her own. On the inside, she trembled and shook and sobbed.

Undyne lowered her head, levelled her spear in front of her, and charged. Fear curled Nyssa's body away from Undyne, pressing into the wall as if  _that_  would help anything, as if  _that_ would spare her the agony she was about to experience...

Death was close. So close. Nyssa could feel it, in the clanking of Undyne's footsteps and the screeching of her armor, the electricity lancing out from her spear…

"Hey! Undyne!"  
Despite herself, Nyssa felt her muscles relax when she heard the high-pitched voice. Unable to believe her and Adrian's incredible luck, she opened her eyes slowly, and saw exactly what she'd been too afraid to believe. Monster Kid stood between the humans and Undyne, looking at her with adoration plain on his face.

Undyne was so surprised that she lowered her spear.

Monster Kid whipped around to look at Nyssa and Adrian, still brimming with excitement. "Yo, you did it! Undyne is  _right_ in front of you! You'll get to watch her fight all of the bad guys and  _kill them!"_  Right after he said that, it all sank in. "W-wait," he stammered. "N-no. Who… who's she fighting? No… not you guys… there's no way..."

"Come with me," Undyne snarled, grabbing the side of his face roughly. "You and I are going to talk about this. I don't want you to look at those people ever again."

"B-but Undyne–"

"Let's  _go!"_

The last Nyssa and Adrian saw of Monster Kid was the mortified expression on his face. His idol had finally talked to him–but it'd been nothing like what he expected.

_Adrian_

"One day, I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under," the Echo Flower murmured wistfully. "Standing under the sky, looking at this world all aroun–" The flower twitched. "All around– around–"

"What's happening?" Adrian whispered.

The voice from the echo flower faded in a crackle of what could almost be static, as if the flower were a broken tape. A new "recording" replaced it. Someone Adrian and Nyssa knew too well, speaking in falsetto as a poor imitation of Toriel that made shivers shoot down his spine.

"Where am I? It's so cold here… and so dark… S-someone help me… anyone… please…"

There was maniacal laughter, abruptly cut off when the Echo Flower stopped.

"The sick flower," Nyssa stammered. "It has to be. He's probably with Xandre when he's not stalking us."

"How-how long ago did he say that? He could still be here, for all we know. We need to get out of here."

"Look. Speaking of Xandre." Nyssa pointed at a sign on the wall. "'However… there is a prophecy. The Angel, the One Who Has Seen the Surface, will return, and the Underground will go empty.' It's exactly like what Gerson said."

"Then we need to go fast. Temmie Armor or no Temmie Armor, we have to go deeper underground to find more monsters and spread the word. This isn't about us or Sans or Papyrus anymore. It's about whether or not monsterkind survives Xandre."

_Xandre_

The most random thought came to Xandre's mind while he was crossing the bridge: today was the first day of October. He had been gone thirteen days, scarcely even two weeks since his seventeenth birthday. And in that time, he'd done so much. Escaped home. Climbed Mount Ebott. Descended into the world of monsters and discovered that he had once been one of them. In the Ruins, he had killed them all. Even Toriel, their immortal Boss Monster guardian. Now he had done the same in Snowdin. And of course he had met Chara. The girl in the void, tethered to him by their shared soul, their shared plans. Now, their shared…

He had no idea what to call it. Dependency? Feelings? Love? No. LOVE.

_Thirteen days._


	38. The Storm (Part 2)

_Nyssa_

Not for the first time, Nyssa questioned the construction monsters' judgement as she and Adrian crossed to the rocky crags she could just barely see on the other side. The dock was narrower than any she'd seen before and on either side was a  _steep drop,_  the water lost to clouds of mist. Wind swept all around them, making Nyssa crouch low and feel as if she would be blown down to her death at any moment.

"Yo!"

Nyssa yelled and nearly lost her balance.

"I–I know I'm not supposed to be here, but I need to ask you something," Monster Kid yelled over the whistle of the wind. "M-man, I've never had to ask anyone this before, but are you… are you…" he swallowed hard. "Are you  _human?"_

"Y-yes," Adrian replied.

Monster Kid forced a laugh. "Yo, I… I knew it. Well, I know now. Undyne told me. So… um… I guess that makes us  _enemies_  now. But I stink at that–being mean. Yo. Why don't you just. Say something mean. So I can hate you."

Nyssa set her jaw. "No. I'm not going to lie."

"All right then… I'll have to do it then? Yo… uh… I… um… hate your guts?" Right after the words left his mouth, he started to tremble. "No… no, I can't… I'm sorry… man, I'm such a turd… I'm… I'm going home now."

He whipped around and ran.

"No!" Adrian yelled. "No, not on this bridge, no! Get back he–"

The child slipped. A wayward piece of wood sticking out from the side caught on the collar of his sweater, dangling him over the precipice.

"N–no… help!  _Help! Somebody!"_

"Monster Kid…!" Nyssa cried, crawl-running towards him. A spear slammed into the wood in front of her.

"Get away from the child," Undyne commanded. "Now."

Nyssa reached out to help Monster Kid back up and stood. She locked eyes with Undyne, surprising herself with the sheer boldness that had suddenly overtaken her. The Captain of the Royal Guard watched Nyssa incredulously as she pulled the spear out of the bridge and dropped it over the side, never once breaking eye contact. Even Adrian drew in a sharp breath behind them.

"Yo," Monster Kid stammered. "If you want to hurt my friends, you're going to have to get through  _me,_  first."

Undyne stared at him, whipped around and strode out of sight.

"Man.. now that's over… I guess we'll just have to be friends, huh? Being enemies was just… a nice thought. I should be going home now." Carefully this time, he turned and left.

_Adrian_

"Six."

Adrian jerked his head upwards. Undyne stood on the highest crag of the stone structure they'd seen, silhouetted against the red light of whatever lay ahead. Her ginger hair whipped behind her, a scarlet flame. Spears slammed into the ground behind the humans, blocking their escape route.

"That's how many human souls King Asgore has collected thus far," Undyne continued. "Understand? Through your souls, our world will be transformed. First, however, as is customary for those who make it this far, I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people– ah! Screw it! Why should I tell you that story when you're about to  _die?"_  In her rage, she tore her helmet off her head and dashed it against the rocks at her feet. Adrian guessed she wouldn't need it anyway.

"You, humans… you are standing in the way of all monsterkind's hopes and dreams. Alphys's history books made me think humans were  _cool. Admirable,_  with their giant swords and flowery swordswomen…"

Despite the situation, Adrian and Nyssa exchanged a glance. Alphys? History books? Flowery swordswomen?

"But  _you…_  you're cowards. Hiding behind that child just so you could run away from me again. And let's not forget your wimpy  _goody-two-shoes schtick!_ 'Ooh! I'm doing you such a favor not killing you with my  _amazing powers!'_  You know what? You'd be more valuable to everyone  _dead._  Your lives are all that stand between us and our freedom!" Undyne took a breath. "Right now, I can feel everyone's souls pounding together. All our two thousand years down here have been leading up to this moment, and I will not allow you to take it away from us. When everyone puts their hearts together,  _we cannot lose._ Let's end this. Right here, right now. I'll show you how Determined monsters can be."

_Was that capital-D Determined?_

Adrian knew that  _he_  certainly was. He could feel it, an adrenaline rush of it charging every molecule of his body to maximum capacity as the wind howled around him. For the first time since the almost-battle against Flowey in Snowdin, Adrian felt his soul marks activate.

He wasn't backing down before a fight.

_ATK 70, DEF 0._

_Nyssa_

Even Undyne was surprised when she pulled Nyssa and Adrian into battle, the familiar laser-straight edges of a rectangular prism drawing themselves in the air around them. Sealing them in.

"What's wrong with your  _souls?_  And your hands…?"

The humans said nothing.

"Ah, it doesn't matter," Undyne spat. Her spear flashed through the air, leaving a streak of green behind it. "En guarde!"

_Defen–_

The wave of green magic passed through Nyssa mid-sign, and suddenly she was back to back with Adrian, holding a shining, transluscent shield in front of her. Panic rose inside her when she realized it was magically bound to her–she wouldn't be able to free her hands.

"As long as you're green, you can't escape. Unless you learn to face danger head-on, you won't last a  _second_  against me!"

_No no no no no no no no no–_

_Not at a time like this, no no no–_

"Nyssa!"

She turned just in time to see three shining spears streaking towards her and Adrian. Thinking fast, she swung the shield between herself and the weapons. They sparked and disappeared.

Undyne flashed a menacing smile. "Don't get too sure of yourselves."

Adrian mustered the will to say something. "Undyne, we're not trying to fight you," he called to her. "If you would just–"

"I told you: there is no way out. You have been cowards for too long. This is long overdue."

The next barrage of spears was upon them, and Nyssa whirled around desperately, just barely blocking each one. This attack took longer than the first–much longer. There seemed to be no end.

Was this it? Was she going to die here, soul taken in this desolate region of Waterfall with her murderer and the rushing water her only witnesses? After hearing the news of two humans' deaths, the Gasters would be able to connect the dots in an instant, and they would grieve their father–and the friends they had come to know–for the second time. Nyssa would never see the light of the Surface again, and neither would monsterkind. Without her and Adrian to warn the monsters ahead, Xandre would be free to continue his killing spree.

Undyne thought she was strong enough to defeat any human. So did Sans. So did Asgore. But Nyssa knew they were all wrong. She and Adrian alone understood the raw power of EXP, discovered by Wing Gaster all those years ago. It was a secret he had taken to his grave with him for fear of the chaos it would spread through the Underground.

_We have that knowledge, and we cannot lose._

_We can't afford to._


	39. One Surprise After Another

_Adrian_

There seemed to be no end to the onslaught. Spears, red and blue and gold, flew at the humans from every direction, pummelling the shields that seemed like scarcely better protection than sheets of glass. Adrian was standing, twisting wildly in an attempt to block all the projectiles coming their way, while Nyssa braced her feet against her shield and struggled to cast it out of her way.

Undyne, still monologuing, bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet. "For millennia, we've dreamed of a happy ending. Sunlight is almost within our rea– augh! Just die already! I don't remember all of Alphys's scientific soul babble, but you–those white parts in yours don't belong to you, do they?" Undyne snapped her fingers, and the spears briefly ceased their assault on the humans. Their shields blinked out of existence.

Nyssa was fast, but Undyne was faster. Green magic lashed around her wrists and bound them behind her back, choking her soul marks back into their dormant state.

Never taking her blazing glare off them, Undyne slowly walked closer.

"You think you're so nice–but I know what you've done." She jabbed an accusing finger at Nyssa and Adrian's souls. "And that, that just proves everything I've suspected about you all along."

"What?" Adrian sputtered.

Undyne barked a laugh. "Don't play dumb with me, human," she warned. "There's only one way your kind could possibly have gotten pieces of monster soul. How else could you do magic like us, fight like us? You disgusting  _murderers."_ With another snap of her fingers, a circle of spears enclosed the humans, a thousand bristling points aimed straight at them.

"We didn't kill any–" Nyssa started, but the words died in her throat.

How would the two of them explain Wing?

Adrian took a breath. He knew was going to do something stupid–but he had to risk it. There was no other way Undyne would possibly be moved enough to spare them.

"Alphys will explain."

Undyne's wall of spears faltered for a beat. Although she tried to maintain her cold, hostile demeanor, Adrian saw immediately on her face that something had changed the moment he mentioned the current Royal Scientist's name.

"Alphys?" Undyne demanded, her spears moving in closer. "What makes you scum think–"

"Alphys knows what's happening. If you want an explanation, take us to her."

The blue of Undyne's cheeks gave way to beet red. "I… I should kill you right now," she snarled. "How  _dare_  you bring her into this?" One spear emerged from the barricade and levelled itself at Adrian's soul. "For your nerve, human, I think I will enjoy finishing you first."

"W-wait!" Adrian cried, shooting a terrified glance at Undyne's attack. It was impossibly close, its razor point a whisper away from burying itself in his soul where purple and white met. "T-trust me, Alphys won't like this!"

Undyne's gaze snapped back to him, and he trembled. He had her attention. Now was his chance.

"A-Alphys took notice of our souls and told us to find her in her lab. She-she didn't want us killed, at least not until we reached her. Then, ah, she… then she was probably going to call you over."

Adrian had delivered his lie unconvincingly, he knew. But it was enough to make Undyne stop. Adrian could almost see her gears turning behind her narrowed eye. For whatever reason, she was concerned about her relationship with Alphys, and if the humans' death in any way jeopardised that… well, the Captain of the Royal Guard was more than smart enough not to take that chance.

"Very well; I will take you to Alphys's lab, and there you can try to explain yourselves. But if you are found to be lying…" Undyne warned, making all her spears flare with magic for the effect. She didn't bother to end her sentence–she and the humans all knew she didn't have to.

Adrian swallowed hard.

Nyssa caught his eye, and on her face he saw reflected the same thought that had started racing through his own mind:  _what in the world do you think you're getting us into?_

_Nyssa_

_What the hell, Adrian?_  Nyssa silently fumed as Undyne marched the two of them down a long stone passageway to the next section of the Underground. The moment their lives weren't being threatened, she was going to  _thrash_  him for doing something so impulsive, so idiotic, so blatantly dumb…

 _And lifesaving,_  the reasonable part of herself reminded her.

She mentally slapped it.

"Human! Keep moving!" Undyne yelled, and Nyssa realized she had lagged slightly in the haze of her thoughts. A spear broke the ground at her heels, and she ran ahead with a yelp. Letters scrolled across the wall in blinking red lights:  _WELCOME TO HOTLAND._

Just then, there was a buzz from Nyssa's pocket, and she cursed inwardly.

A phone call? Now?

To her surprise, Undyne just rolled her eyes. "What the heck–take it," she said gruffly. "But don't try to escape, do you understand?" To emphasize her point, she summoned five spears in front of each human, their electric points barring their way to freedom.

"Hey, what's up?"

_Crap._

Nyssa had forgotten she'd left the phone on speaker. Papyrus's voice, enthusiastic and exuberant as ever, was unmistakable. Undyne stared at Nyssa, not even bothering to yell out a death threat. "Papyrus has your number?" she sputtered. "How?"

 _We're one surprise after another,_  Nyssa thought wryly.

_Xandre_

Xandre heard Papyrus before he saw him–just like in every other encounter he'd had with the skeleton brothers. He was a little way out past the Gasters' house and the boundaries of Snowdin Town. It sounded like he was having a one-way conversation, and it took a while for Xandre to remember that phones were a thing in the Underground.

"You guys, me and Undyne should totally hang out sometime," he was saying.

Xandre risked a glimpse in Papyrus's direction over the boulder he'd been hiding behind. He couldn't believe his luck–Wing's younger son was alone, grinning at the metal box he clutched in his hand. Heck, he was prancing out in the snow without a care in the world! Too naive to realize that everyone else who'd once shared Snowdin Town with him was dead.

 _[Idiot,]_  Xandre said.

"Idiot," Chara snorted at the same time.

_[Where's the older one? Sans Gaster?]_

"Haven't seen him in a while. But I have a feeling that if he were anywhere nearby, he'd be with Papyrus. Those two are practically joined at the hip most of the time."

_[Weird that Sans isn't here, then…]_

"But lucky."

Xandre's knife slid from its sheath without a sound.

_[Yes. Lucky.]_

_Adrian_

"I think you would make great pals," Papyrus continued, oblivious to the fact that Undyne was standing right there behind the humans with an impressive mixture of anger and incredulity on her face. Oblivious, too, to the fact that another human had just moved several steps closer to him, a blade the length of a forearm bone glinting in his hand.

"Let's meet up at her house later! I'm sure we'll have so much fu–"

Papyrus's voice suddenly dropped off. The crunching of boots on snow became audible on the other end of the line, growing in volume and proximity.

Something had happened.

"H-hey! It's you... Oh drat… Sans, are you there? S-Sans, help! Hey! Human, what are you doi–"

_Click._


	40. Mistakes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed Chara's speech so it looks like {this} when she talks to Xandre. Any dialogue from Xandre to Chara is still [this].

_Nyssa_

"That's IT!" Undyne spat, slamming the butt of her spear against the ground with such force that cracks raced across the stone. She jabbed the sharp end at both humans in turn as electricity crackled anew down its shaft. "You two owe me an explanation. Now. I don't care whether or not Alphys wants you alive–talk, or I will kill you on the spot."

Undyne's threats were harsh, but they paled in comparison to what Nyssa feared Papyrus was going through right now.

"Papyrus is our friend, and he's in danger."

Undyne stared at Nyssa for a moment before she broke out in derisive laughter. "You? Friends with Papyrus? That's funny. Tell me another one! No. Human, the  _truth."_  Another jab of the electric spear, even closer than before.

"She's  _telling_  you the truth," Adrian contributed. "Papyrus tried to capture us at first, but he realized that he didn't have to."

"Oh, really? And why not? Because you're going to  _save the world,_ is it? Just swoop in and rescue all our souls from the Underground? I don't know who you have fooled, but I for one see straight through you. So tell me, humans. What is the real reason why Papyrus called, and what just happened to him?"

"I don't know why Papyrus called, but my guess is that he just wanted to say hello."

"That does sound like him," Undyne muttered to herself. "But to  _humans…?"_

"As for what just happened, I'm afraid someone very dangerous has caught up to him, and if we don't help him, he won't… he won't survive."

"And who is this?" Undyne asked, slightly less disdainfully. The notion of Papyrus in danger had stirred some protective instinct in her, it seemed–at least she and the humans had that in common. The spear remained tight in her hand, though, and its point didn't waver.

"Another human," Nyssa replied. "His name is Xandre, and he has been killing all the monsters he encountered on his way through the Underground. He just ambushed Papyrus, doing God knows what to him." She found the volume of her voice rising, but couldn't help it. "So it would only be right to go help him. I get that we're humans and you don't like that. But Papyrus needs us right now."

_Xandre_

"H-halt, human!" Papyrus stammered, once he realized his older brother wouldn't be there to save him. Xandre laughed and stepped closer, letting his knife hand swing with a practiced casualness at his side.

_[If this is the next generation of Royal Guards, the Underground is doomed. More so than it already is.]_

_{Good for us, at least.}_

_[That's true.]_

"H-how dare you move while I am ordering you to stand still!" Papyrus tried again. "Because I, the Great Papyrus, have some things to say! First: you are a freaking  _weirdo!_  You're nothing like the others. You don't like puzzles and never have any fun. I've never heard you say anything nice to  _anybody!_ And even weirder, the way you keep shambling about with that knife and that dusty powder on your hands… not to mention those weird blue hearts that appear on them so much. I've only seen the other two do that once." Papyrus took in a shuddering breath, and Xandre could almost see an uncharacteristic intelligence in his eye sockets when he continued, "it seems you are headed down a dangerous path. However… never fear! I, the Great Papyrus, see great potential in you! Everyone can be a great person if they try–unless they're me, in which case they wouldn't have to try at all! Nyeh heh heh!"

Once again, Xandre stifled an eye roll at this, but on the inside he had already begun thinking. He took a step closer.

"Human… ugh! This is exactly what I am talking about! Someone like you clearly needs guidance–someone else to keep you on the straight and narrow! But I, the great Papyrus, will gladly be your friend and tutor! I will turn your life right around!"

 _{Papyrus is insufferable, but it would be stupid not to take advantage of this,}_ Chara pointed out.

_[Oh yeah… he knows just enough info to be useful, and is too naive to avoid telling us. Wow, look at you being right.]_

_{Xandre, I always am.}_

_Adrian_

"Very well. I will go," Undyne decided. "But don't think this makes us  _friends,_ humans." Spears thrust themselves up from the ground and the walls, trapping Nyssa and Adrian in a cage of electric shafts. To his chagrin, Adrian realized both their hands were bound. Undyne certainly learned fast.

"You will be here when I return," the Captain of the Royal Guard continued, "and then I will deal with you. Understand?"

Adrian bit his lip. "The human is a lot more dangerous than you thi–"

"Shut  _up!_ You think you are in any place to warn me? For all I know this is one big ruse. I wouldn't put it past you to have  _arranged_  all this. It will be fun to finish the three of you together."

"How can we convince you we're not hiding anything?" Nyssa burst out.

"You too! What is it with you humans mouthing off in front of me?" Undyne rolled her eyes. "I've talked to you far too long. Don't try anything funny–I'll be returning soon."

With that, she stalked back down the corridor with her spear in hand, towards Papyrus.

Towards Xandre.

_Xandre_

Xandre sheathed his knife, willed his facial features to smooth into a pleasant mask, and returned Papyrus's gaze calmly and patiently. He shoved his urge to kill beneath the surface. There would be time for that–but it would come later.

"Hey, Papyrus," he tried, surprised at how easily the affable tone rolled off his tongue. Hearing signs of friendship, the skeleton grinned at him eagerly.  _Too dumb to wonder why the person approaching him with a knife is suddenly being nice to him._  "It's fair what you're offering me. I think I'd actually like to talk a bit. Wouldn't you?"

"Wowie!" Papyrus yelped, bouncing up and down in his excitement. "Are you really accepting my  _maganamious_  offer? My lessons are already working and they haven't even started yet!"

"Yeah," Xandre forced himself to say, the friendly tone already beginning to grate on his throat on its way out. Every word was acid to him, every smile venom, but he shoved down his disdain. "I think we could give that a chance, being friends."

"Oh wow… human! You are an even faster learner than I expected you would be! You'll be as great as I am in no time, I have no doubt! Just know that I welcome you with open arms, my… my  _friend!_  Who would've known… Papyrus, future Royal Guardsman, friends with  _three humans!"_

_{Look at him, so kindly handing the opportunity to us.}_

_[Too perfect.]_

" _Three_  humans, you say? Is that true? Papyrus, I'm sure you are very great, but  _three_  human friends sounds like an amazing achievement even for you! Who are the other two?"

_{Flattery? Smooth, Xandre.}_

_[Shut up–it's working.]_

"You don't know them? Funny. I thought you humans would be best friends already, since you all arrived so close together! Although it  _is_  strange those two didn't mention you'd be coming. Almost like they didn't know! They were a girl and a boy, same age as you, named Nyssa and Adrian. They talked to me, but hung out with Sans a lot for some reason. Must've been having fun."

_[Maybe they were talking about Wing…?]_

_{I think so.}_

_[So Sans knows that they know…]_

"Oh, really? Did they ever tell you why?"

"It must've been some secret of theirs because Sans didn't even tell me about it! And he tells me everything. But I didn't feel too bad about it! I'm glad my brother even  _has_  secrets! It's so much better than seeing him laze around all the time. Maybe one day he'll even be cool like me!"

"And what did the two humans look like, by the way?"

_{Yes, yes, yes.}_

"Hmm… Nyssa had light golden hair she always tied up, and her eyes were blue–kind of like the river, or Sans's jacket, but paler. And Adrian was a bit taller, with darker skin. He had dark eyes and messy brown hair. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering so I'd know who they were, in case I wanted to hang out with them sometime," Xandre replied innocently. "Did they tell you where they were going or what they were here for?"

At this, Papyrus gave Xandre a skeptical look and shook his head. "Wait… wait a second. You're asking me some funny questions, human. And… uh… I'm sorry, but I think I've told you too much."

_{Even Papyrus caught on, huh? Nice going, Xandre, such nice going.}_

_[Hey, at least we got something out of him, okay? Nyssa and Adrian. I won't be forgetting that any time soon.]_

_Nyssa_

Undyne's resounding footsteps faded down the corridor, and her shadow shrank until Nyssa couldn't see it anymore. As much as her bonds would allow, she twisted to face Adrian, a mixture of emotions churning in the pit of her stomach.

"Adrian, I– that was crazy–"

"What?" he snapped. "Saving our lives? I wouldn't exactly consider that the  _dumbest_  thing I've ever done."

"All we had to do was outlast that one round of attacks and run one more time," Nyssa hissed. "I remember that Hotland would be hot enough to make Undyne faint in all that armor. We could've escaped without any extra trouble. But now–you've basically turned us in and involved  _Alphys_  in this too. How do you think she's going to react when Undyne says she asked for us? She'll be totally confused, we'll be found out immediately, and Undyne will rip us apart."

"What was I supposed to do, stand there?" Adrian shot back. "In case you don't remember, Undyne was accusing us of murder. I had to come up with an explanation so she wouldn't gut us right then and there. If you think you could've said something better, maybe try actually  _talking_  next time?"

They stared each other down, tension tangible in the air between them. Nyssa knew it had been building for a while now, but realized even in her anger that this was  _not_  the time to release it. She heaved a sigh. "You know what? This is stupid. Papyrus is out there, with Xandre, and now so is Undyne. We're useless trapped here. You think there's a way to escape?"

"I don't know, you tell me, since you're clearly the superior decision-maker," Adrian muttered.

"Shut up and help me figure this thing out."

_Xandre_

_{Nyssa - blond hair and blue eyes. Adrian - brown hair and brown eyes. Easy enough. Besides, it's not like there'll exactly be many other humans down here to confuse them with.}_

"Come on, Papyrus," Xandre tried, struggling harder to keep his tone calm and even. "I thought we agreed to be friends."

"H… human… please understand… this isn't because I don't want to be your friend… I'm just not sure…"

"Papyru–"

"What do you think you're doing?" another voice cut in. This one was all too familiar, laced with fury so pure Xandre could feel its heat on his soul. His heart froze in his chest.  _No–not now._ He raised his head to look over Papyrus's shoulder.

_I knew we should've found out where he was._

Sure enough, Sans stood in the snow with his left eye engulfed in blue flame, a weapon shaped like a deer skull hovering over his shoulder. Magical energy crackled around him.

_[Oh.]_

_{We've screwed up.}_


	41. Even the Worst Person

_Xandre_

Xandre stiffened, Chara unleashing a flurry of curses in his head.

"I knew I should have listened to them about you," Sans continued, his voice stone cold. "So tell me this time, whoever,  _whatever_  you think you are…  _what were you trying to do to my brother?"_

Setting his jaw, Xandre looked back at Sans and said nothing. This meddling had been… unfortunate, and he shoved down the wave of fear that came when he took in Sans's arsenal. He recognized the weapon, designed by Wing Gaster all those years ago, but knowing how it worked wouldn't exactly help him win a fight. Monster magic increased in power with the summoner's will to battle, and Sans was certainly  _very_ eager to take Xandre on.

"W-wait, brother!" Papyrus cried. In the shock of seeing Sans show up, Xandre had almost forgotten about him.

"Papyrus, stay back," Sans told him, clearly trying not to reveal how distraught he was. "You have no idea what this human can do."

"No, Sans!" Papyrus protested. "Something… something tells me I can still believe in him! He can still do better!"

"What are you  _thinking?_  Are you aware of how many monsters died at his hands?" A forceful tone began to creep into Sans's voice.

Papyrus didn't stop although his bones were trembling, and even took a step toward Xandre. "Brother… don't you think… that even the worst person can cha–"

Sans snapped. "Papyrus,  _enough!"_

In one fluid motion, he turned his brother's soul blue and sent him stumbling backward with a flick of his hand. Papyrus's eye sockets grew huge with disbelief when he looked back up again. Xandre could almost swear he saw tears pooling there. Despite his superior height, Sans's attack had left him looking vulnerable, small, like the child he was.

"B-brother…?"

Sans's extended arm shook, as if he himself was shocked by the sudden violence of his action. He lowered it slowly. "Paps… I'm sorry… but I cannot let you anywhere near that human."

 _{What are you waiting for? Let's get_ out  _of here.}_

Thirty seconds later, Sans turned back to where Xandre had stood and spat out a word he normally would never have said near Papyrus.

"Goddamn human's gone…"

_Adrian_

Adrian slumped down as far as his restraints would allow, clenching his jaw in furious silence. It was just those little things Nyssa did–not saying a word of thanks, refusing to speak up then getting mad at him for what he'd said–that really got to him. He figured he should have seen this coming. Amid all the danger and chaos, something was bound to be the catalyst, setting aflame the tension between himself and Nyssa.

_No team is perfect._

_Especially, I realize now, not this one._

The two of them had gotten along perfectly fine before, more than capable of working in tandem like two pieces of one whole–which, of course, they were. Why'd they have to argue  _now,_  when their lives were truly at stake?

_Xandre_

Only when the Gasters were out of sight did Xandre allow himself to relax.

He crouched on the path to Waterfall, snow swirling in flurries around him.

_[Now that… is what I call a close one.]_

_{Keep going,}_ Chara urged.  _{We need to get as far away from those brothers as we can.}_

Picking himself up, Xandre forced himself to continue his pace away from Snowdin. Already his muscles burned–he couldn't remember sprinting so fast before. Clearly, underestimating Sans had been a deadly mistake he didn't intend to repeat any time soon.

_{Hide!}_

_[What?]_

_{Go! Do it!}_

Confused and frightened, Xandre darted into the pine forest and clambered up one of the trees. From this vantage point, he could just see the path, but dense green needles hopefully concealed him from onlookers. He took a deep breath in–this close to the pines, it was impossible to mistake the scent he remembered from his days hunting on the Surface.

_[Why'd you have me hide?]_

_{Look over there.}_

Even though Chara hadn't physically pointed anywhere, her consciousness redirected Xandre's attention to the Waterfall side of the path. An armored figure drew closer and closer with what looked like a length of blue lightning crackling in her hand, every footfall sending a loud clang reverberating through the air. Even from this distance away, Xandre could feel the pure power radiating off her and recoiled.

_[Chara? Who is that?]_

_{Undyne, head of the Royal Guard. She'll kill us in two seconds flat if she sees you.}_

Xandre held his breath as Undyne passed his hiding spot, certain even his heartbeat would give him away.

It didn't.

Focused on some other point in front of her, Undyne marched on, and stopped a dozen meters away. "Papyrus? Are you there?"

From the Snowdin side came Papyrus's response: "Yes, I'm here!" The younger skeleton brother ran out from behind the curtain of swirling snow, Sans following closely behind with the blue magic just beginning to fade from his left eye.

"Papyrus," Undyne cried. "Papyrus, you're safe. And Sans!"

"A human just attacked my brother," spat Sans.

Undyne went stiff.

"A human, you say?"

"Yes."

"He didn't  _attack_  me," Papyrus protested. "I'm sure he–"

"Describe him," Undyne interrupted.

"O-okay… he had black hair, and dark blue eyes. He was carrying this long knife and had dust all over him."

Xandre's perspective didn't allow him to see Undyne's face, but he could guess that her one eye narrowed. She clenched her fist tighter around her spear and regarded Papyrus again. "Anything else? Do you know his name?"  
"No… but I remember he always did this weird thing when he fought. He'd have these… glowing blue souls on his hands. And there'd be symbols around him and he'd do something fancy like this…" Papyrus frowned, jerking his arms and jabbing the air in his best impression of sign language. "I don't know. Anyhow, this human could do  _magic._ The other two could, too. Strange, though, I have the strongest feeling I've seen someone else do the same magic a long time ago..."

Sans flinched, but Undyne paid no attention to Papyrus's last sentence. "What?" she sputtered. " _Those_  two, the boy and the girl? Your–"

"Friends," said Papyrus quietly. "Nothing's changed. They're still my friends."

Undyne stared at her best friend, at a loss for words.

"Papyrus, we went over this. You can't be friends with  _humans._  Your brother says one just attacked you! Just… agh, you know what? You're explaining all this to me, but  _later._  One freaking thing at a time or I'm gonna go crazy. So Papyrus. What happened to this last human? Did you kill him this time?"

"No…" Papyrus admitted. "He ran away."

"He  _what,_  Papyrus!?"  
"U-Undyne! I'm sorry!"  
The captain of the Royal Guard threw her arms up in exasperation. "Papyrus, you've had two chances handed straight to you, and you let both of them slip? You know we need just one more human soul… and on top of even that… this  _murderous human_  is now running loose who knows where?"

Xandre ripped a few needles from the tree.

_[Just… great.]_

"Hey… don't blame him," Sans spoke up. "Undyne, you know he's a very friendly monster, and that's a good thing… though I know he still has, uh, more to learn than you'd like. There's nothing we can do about what already happened, but that human's still out there, and he  _can_  still be killed. Trust me, Undyne, we will do everything we can to help the Royal Guard hunt this human down. I for one am not letting him get away with what he tried to do to Papyrus."

"Neither will I, you can be assured of that," Undyne snarled.

_Nyssa_

It felt like an hour before Undyne returned. Armor clanking, ponytail swishing, she stopped in front of the cage of spears where the humans remained trapped. The disdain between Nyssa and Adrian had died down as they waited, tempered by a realization that they were stuck together for better or worse.

"Good; you're still there."

"Papyrus?"

"He's just fine," Undyne huffed. Something in her stony demeanor softened a fraction when she added, "you were right. There  _was_  a human attacking him, apparently, but Sans drove him away before I got there. You really got lucky this time, didn't you, you pair of twerps? Now don't try anything funny: I'm going to let you out of this cage so we can get a move on. I haven't forgotten what you said about meeting Alphys."

_Nyssa_

Undyne watched Nyssa particularly closely as she released the bindings on her wrists, flashing her eye in warning. As she had last time, she had the two humans walk in front of her, carefully blocking off their possibilities of escape with more electric spears. Nyssa couldn't help but feel like she and Adrian were cows, while Undyne was the farmer.

Up ahead, warm orange light washed into the chamber, and the trio stepped out onto a rust-red plain. Another sentry booth, presumably Sans's, stood unmanned to one side. Stone on either side of the path sloped down into a roiling lava ocean that extended out as far as Nyssa could see. Unfortunately for Adrian, the only way across to the greater part of Hotland was another rope bridge.

"I'm getting tired of being escorted across bridges," Adrian muttered. "Especially ones this narrow. Have they never heard of safety railings down here?"

"Move!" Undyne snapped, once again jabbing her spear for emphasis. Nyssa and Adrian scrambled across the bridge to evade her attacks and looked to the other side. Across the plain from them was a white building, shaped almost perfectly like a rectangular prism with a video camera fixed above its doorframe.

Nyssa certainly didn't need the sign to recognize this place, and neither did Adrian.

"It's the Lab," Adrian said finally. "That's where Wing–"

"No  _duh,_  it's the Lab!" Undyne snapped from behind them. "Totally couldn't tell from  _the giant_   _sign above the doors there._ Now let's go!"

The huge set of white double doors hissed open before they reached the entrance, activated from the inside. Alphys had seen them.

_This is it._


	42. Scientific Miracles

_Adrian_

Stepping into the illuminated Lab, Adrian slammed into a wall of memories tangible enough to make him stumble backward.

Every shape, every angle, of this place was new yet hauntingly familiar. It had certainly gotten more cluttered now that Alphys was in charge. Against the wall, next to the escalator that led down from the second floor, was an enormous monitor screen displaying–Adrian did a double take–surveillance camera footage in real time of the humans and Undyne. He didn't know what was more surprising: that Alphys was here, or that she had been watching him and Nyssa.

_How much has she seen?_

"Alphys!" Undyne yelled into the expansive room.

A metal door in the wall slid open with a  _woosh,_  and a small yellow lizard monster peeked out. She was clad in a white lab coat, glasses balanced on her snout. Her tail twitched in anxiety. "M-my god, Undyne," she stammered. "I definitely didn't expect you so s-s-soon… I'm so s-sorry… I haven't even showered yet… haven't c-cleaned up or p-put on something nice…"

Adrian frowned. Why was she so much more jittery and anxious than the Alphys of seventeen years ago?  _What happened to her?_

"Aww, it's  _fine,_  Alphys!" Undyne exclaimed, which drove a flush of red up the lizard's cheeks. "Come over here, will ya?" she paused for a second, looking at Nyssa and Adrian critically. "These humans claim you wanted to see them."

Adrian's heart sank as Alphys walked toward them with obvious confusion. "I… uh… I did?"

 _Crap crap crap._ Adrian's wide-eyed gaze locked with Nyssa's, and the same thought passed between both of them.  _If we don't get Alphys to play along_ right now,  _we're dead._

 _I'll handle it,_  Nyssa mouthed, and Adrian prayed she meant it this time.

"So." Adrian could hear the savage satisfaction in Undyne's voice when she spoke. "You  _didn't_  ask for these two, huh?"

_Nyssa, you'd better act now…_

In the moment when Undyne's focus was on Alphys and not the humans, Nyssa caught Alphys's eye and signed four words, so quickly Adrian could've missed it if he weren't looking at her the whole time.  _Please cooperate. Explain later._

"W-w-w-what?" Alphys stuttered, eyes as big as saucers. "I d-don't understand… how could you p-possibly know..."

 _Explain later,_  Nyssa repeated.

"Don't understand what?" Undyne said, an edge in her voice.

"D-don't understand why you'd think the humans are l-l-lying, of course!" Alphys said too quickly, her words tripping over one another on their way out. "I-I just forgot, silly m-me! I've b-been expecting those two. Forgot b-b-because I was s-surprised you came with them, that's all.  _Pleasantly_ surprised," Alphys added hastily, "very p-pleasantly s-s-s-surprised."

Undyne and Alphys were flustered mirror images.

"Well, then," Undyne finally got out, the words making her blush harder. "Good to know."

"Y-you can leave us to it. I'll c-call you later!"

"Alphys, if these humans lay a finger on you…"  
"Th-they won't," Alphys assured her, shooting a glance at Nyssa. "I've g-got you on speed dial in case anything goes w-wrong, remember?" She forced a smile, waving her phone in the air.

Undyne sighed. "If you insist. Be careful, Alphys." With that, the head of the Royal Guard was gone, and the Lab doors closed behind her. Nyssa, Adrian, and Alphys stood in awkward silence for a moment more. Adrian's eyes wandered to a large wooden plaque on the south wall that seemed like it had been there for a long time, bearing the inscriptions of countless names. He only caught the last few:

_P. Serif_

_A. S. Libre_

_L. Blackletter_

_C. Neue_

_W. D. Gaster & H. Neue_

_A. Gaster_

There must have been hundreds of names, extending backward into obscurity, once-living monsters lost to the mists of time. Hundreds of Royal Scientists' lives had played out within these walls, each one a mere eyeblink...

"S-so," stammered Alphys. "W-what was that? Yeah, y-you, the h-human girl… how d-did you learn sign language? I didn't know Sans t-taught anybody else after… after…" the rest of her sentence died in her throat and she shuffled silently, staring at the ground between her feet.

"Sans didn't teach us. It's… a little more complicated than that," Nyssa said.

_Xandre_

Still extremely on edge, Xandre clambered down from the pine tree, carefully controlling the breaths that came in and out of his lungs.

_[We're officially being hunted down by a superpowerful skeleton and a fish lady with formidable spear skills–great.]_

_{She_ had  _to realize we were down here eventually. This changes nothing. Come on–she's been gone for a long time now, and so have the skeletons. They've done nothing but delay us so far–it's about time we moved on.}_

_[Right.]_

Chara fell silent for a while as Xandre trudged onward through the remainder of Snowdin and set foot on the first cerulean stones of Waterfall. Glittering snow fell off his boots and melted on the ground, water joining more water.

_[May I ask you something?]_

_{Fine, shoot.}_

_[How exactly do you know so much about the Underground?]_

The girl in Xandre's head said nothing.

 _{I lived here once,}_ she finally allowed. Xandre waited for her to elaborate, only for her to say nothing.  _Okay, then._

_{Since you got to ask me something, I think it's only fair that I get a question too.}_

_[Fine, shoot,]_ Xandre replied, trying his best to imitate her tone. He could've sworn he heard Chara take a deep breath before she spoke to him next.

_{Xandre. Why did you kiss me?}_

That almost stopped him in his tracks, but he reminded himself to keep walking while he formulated an answer. Of course she'd ask him that.  _[Chara, I…]_

 _{I've been trying to pretend it didn't happen,}_ Chara added before he could finish.  _{That decision you made last night could've just been an impulsive one. I wanted to give you time so you could… rethink.}_

_[I don't regret anything, Chara. I told you, didn't I? I still mean it now.]_

_{Xandre, it's been a day, even less…}_

Xandre passed a sentry booth next to a glowing blue flower. There were no monsters in sight.

_[Why? Did… you not want me to do something like that?]_

_{Well.}_ Chara hesitated, picking her words carefully.  _{I am willing to admit that the experience was… not unpleasant. Just… very much… unexpected. But please, consider what you're getting us into. No matter how much I may be, ah, curious, or even want it…}_

 _[So you_ do  _want it?]_ A shiver of mixed excitement and anticipation raced down Xandre's spine.

_{Yes. I just don't know if that'd slow us down–if we really were, uh, you know, an… "us".}_

_[Chara, to be honest, I don't know either. But either way, I thought you should at least be aware of what I want. Looks like it's what you want, too.]_

_{It is... but we must keep sight of our mission, or all this will be for naught.}_

Xandre ran his fingers down the handle of his knife.  _[Who says we can't do both?]_

_Nyssa_

Nyssa bit her lip, hesitating, as she struggled over how to tell Alphys the truth.

"You study soul science, right?"

"I d-do."

"So you're aware… of what monster souls usually do when a monster dies?"

"They d-disappear. Wh-why are you asking?"

Nyssa heaved a sigh. This was the difficult part. "Well… seventeen years ago the previous Royal Scientist vanished without a trace. Wing Din Gaster–though you'd know him as Dr. Gaster."  _Or as your foster dad._ "You certainly remember that."

"Y-yes," Alphys confirmed shakily, the orange draining from her cheeks. "B-b-but h-how do  _y-you_  know all this? Y-you're s-scaring me."

 _Alphys has been watching us, but she doesn't have footage of us fighting Flowey or Undyne,_  Nyssa reasoned.  _She'd already suspect something if she saw that._

"The thing is… when he died… his soul didn't disappear. For reasons we don't really understand yet, it split into three pieces, and we each got one of them. There's more," she added when Alphys's eyes widened with unmasked incredulity. "I can do his magic. We get memories from his life, and Adrian has his knowledge about the Underground. We… we remember you, Alphys, and everybody else. It's like we lived his life ourselves."

"B-but that's impossible. Monster souls aren't p-p-persistent. They c-can't be. And h-how could memories and abilities j-j-jump from body to b-body just like that? O-okay, that's it. Hold s-still." Alphys turned around and ran to the big screen, still displaying Nyssa and Adrian, and poked one of the many buttons along its bottom edge. The display on the screen faded to monotone, with the humans and Alphys becoming dark silhouettes. Glowing prominently from inside each of them was a soul.

Alphys must've gawked at the screen forever.

"Y-you're some sort of s-scientific miracle," she stammered, turning back to Nyssa and Adrian. "A l-living f-f-fusion of human and monster w-within just one s-soul… this g-goes against all my r-research… I d-don't believe it! This could be a  _breakthrough!_  Huh… w-would you mind st-staying here for a while, m-maybe a day or two? I have a feeling there's a lot to be c-caught up on."

"Actually… we'll… need to get through this section of the Underground fast," Adrian said tentatively. "We think there's… something that's been left behind in the CORE which needs to be taken care of."

"Th-the CORE? Where h-he… he…?"

"We're not sure what it is, but we feel it's important," Nyssa said, catching on. Alphys didn't seem to know about Xandre either, and seeing what a nervous wreck the Royal Scientist was already, Nyssa wasn't too sure about breaking the news–especially so soon after their souls had just dropped a bombshell on her.

She  _would_  have to know eventually, though. Somebody as influential as she was would mobilize evacuations far more effectively than Sans. Yet Wing's remaining protective instinct–and perhaps something deeper than that–stirred within Nyssa, urging her to shield Alphys from the truth.

That was such a typical thing for Wing to do.

_Ironic that a scientist, one who devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge, would be so keen to hide it when it mattered the most._


	43. Last Letter

_Xandre_

Since their last conversation, Chara had fallen strangely silent, leaving Xandre's imagination to go wild. Every sentence of hers turned itself over and over in his mind. It was funny how even a single one of her words could penetrate through to his soul. He had already grown used to Chara being a part of his mind–sometimes, it was hard even to tell where his consciousness ended and hers began.

 _[Chara?]_ he asked tentatively.

 _{I'm here, Xandre,}_ came her reply. Her voice loosened a knot in Xandre's chest immediately, and he wondered whether he should be rejoicing or mocking himself for his dependency on someone who technically didn't even exist.

 _[There aren't many monsters over here,]_ he tried.  _[Do you think they could've started evacuating? Undyne looked like she was onto us.]_

_{Yeah, yeah, maybe. But do you remember my plan?}_

_[Of course I do.]_

_{I think Undyne is the only monster we need for that. Forget the others; let them evacuate if they want, okay? We'll come back for them later. All we have to do now is get to Undyne, and then you know what to do.}_

_[She's the one?]_

_{I'm sure of it. I sensed it when she passed by.}_

_[But she's probably the most powerful monster in the Underground-]_

_{Exactly. That's why she has what I want. Understand?}_

_[Yes.]_

_{Good. Find out how to kill her before we get to the CORE, and Wing will probably give you the rest.}_

_Adrian_

"S-so," Alphys stammered, "you really h-have… memories from another life?"

"In a way," Adrian allowed.

"I'll have to t-test that… h-how many years apart are Sans and Papyrus?"

"Six."

"Wh-who were the two Royal Scientist candidates before Dr. Gaster's generation?"

"Cambria Neue, Helvetica's mother, and Semi Serif, Wing's father. The king's controversial selection of Cambria over Semi led to a rivalry between the Neues and the Gasters."

"How many times d-did Dr. Gaster r-revise the design of the CORE?"

"Fourteen."

"Amazing," said Alphys, trembling a little. "But w-wait a second. I think it's better we discussed these things in p-p-private. Come upstairs w-with me."

Adrian followed Nyssa and Alphys up the escalator, into the second-floor apartment that had once been home to Wing and his family. Anticipating the memory avalanche and bracing himself for it, he was better able to stifle his reaction. This room, which now belonged to Alphys alone, was much more packed than he remembered.  _Interesting…_ Alphys had used anime posters and furniture to obstruct doors that had formerly led to bathrooms and a kitchen. Had he not remembered it, Adrian would never have suspected that the majority of the apartment was on the other side of the north wall.

_Too much extra space? Memories she'd prefer to avoid?_

_Or storage for things she wants to leave undiscovered?_

Walking up to the bookshelf in front of Wing and Helvetica's old bedroom, Nyssa scanned the many tomes stored there. "The Science of the Soul? Basic Biomagical Engineering? These were Wing's books, weren't they?"

"S-some of them," Alphys replied. She giggled nervously. "Dr. Gaster wasn't n-nearly as much of a–a  _w-weeb,_  in U-Undyne's words–as I am." Was it just him, or did Alphys trip over Undyne's name, even more so than with everything else she said? "B-but I know that's not what you're h-here for. Here, y-y-you might want to h-have a seat." She gestured towards the rickety stools by her workbench, and Adrian tentatively sat down.

The table was positively covered in paper, veritable mounds of the stuff obscuring what looked like a diagram of a soul and a… chainsaw? Adrian's eyes flicked over most of the papers without interest–schedules, shopping lists, anime comic books–but came to rest on the highest stack in the corner: envelopes.

"You've been busy," Adrian said after a while.

"Y-yeah… I guess y-you could say th-that," Alphys stuttered. "R- _really_  b-b-b-b-busy." Only just realizing Adrian was staring at her envelopes, Alphys jumped up from her seat as if it had suddenly turned white-hot, flicking them off the table with her tail. They cascaded to the ground, a landslide, and Adrian realized that this only allowed him to see them more clearly.

"Wait." Nyssa frowned, bending over to inspect a certain envelope. It had been unnoticeable before, buried underneath Alphys's disorganized flurry of sheets, but when Adrian peeked at it over her shoulder he realized that this one was marked with neat Wingdings.

"Oh… th-that? It's… uh… well… f-funny, because I was j-just c-c-considering telling y-you about that. Since you already s-seem to know so m-m-much about Dr. Gaster's life and e-everything." She swept it up into her claws, holding it delicately. "I n-never did open it, b-but it's addressed to…"

"Sans," Adrian said quietly, reading the Wingdings at the top. "From a date about seventeen years ago."  _Sans couldn't have been more than ten years old then._  "Is… is this what I think it is?"

"I actually d-don't know," Alphys admitted. "I t-told you, I didn't open it. B-but judging by the timing of it, and the l-letter  _I_ got… y-yeah, I think so. I f-found it before Sans did, after Dr. Gaster d-died… and…" she stared at the ground, suddenly ashamed. "I d-dunno… didn't w-want to see Sans any more upset th-than he already was, s-so I… I t-t-took it. There was one for me, too, and for P-Papyrus. Those are s-somewhere else–I hid them t-together and they k-k-kind of got s-scattered. I d-didn't want to b-bring the pain back, you know?"

"I guess."

"W-well… actually… would y-you mind d-doing me a favor?"

"What is it?" Adrian asked.

"G-give this to Sans next t-t-time you see him," Alphys sputtered. "It's b-been too long. H-he deserves to r-read it."

Unwilling to admit how morbidly curious he was about its contents, Adrian accepted the envelope from Alphys and tucked it in his pocket.

He didn't need to wonder for much longer. Right after the letter left his hand again, a memory from long ago flashed into his mind.

_Memory_

Right when he put his pen to the paper, Wing's hand–unsteady for once–trembled. With one ill-timed shudder, the perfectly formed Wingdings character he had written was gashed through with jet black.

He took a deep breath to compose himself and tried again. Printed one symbol after another until it resolved itself into a greeting.

_Dearest Sans,_

He had to pause again in case he accidentally crossed out the entire line.

_No going back no going back no going back_

_He needs an explanation_

_It's the least he deserves from a terrible father_

Gathering the wits he had almost lost after writing just two words, Wing resumed.

_If you are reading this, the chances are that I have recently departed for the CORE and failed to return. I know that you must be worried, and it pains me greatly to reveal what you are about to read–but the least you deserve is the truth._

_There is a possibility I am not coming back._

_I have been preparing for this day for the past eleven years. In my original plans for the CORE, I included the blueprints for a machine of immense power somewhere inside. To my regret, there is little I can reveal about this plan, in the case that this note is ever intercepted and decoded. All you can know is that if my objective is achieved, I will return to free monsterkind._

_Even the smallest chance I could save you is enough for me._

It was painful, painful,  _painful_  writing this far, inscribing his own epitaph on paper too fragile to bear the weight of his words, another reminder that he had already passed the point of no return.

_I want you to grow up happy and free on the Surface. When I first fell in love with your mother, I promised her this for our children, and I do not intend to break that vow._

_I hope you understand why this is information I had to withhold from the rest of our family all these years. I did not want to burden your young minds with a prospect so heavy–and I could not afford for your mother to attempt stopping me._

Although everything he had written was true–necessary–Wing felt regret tear through him as he thought of all he had done.

He had had to hide so much from his family.

Push them away in the hopes of saving them.

Helvetica, Sans, Alphys, Papyrus.

He had hurt them.

And he knew there was only one way, one impossible way, to redeem himself–to make his actions amount to something that would maybe, just maybe, be worth all the pain along the way.

_If you are angry, I acknowledge that, and I agree completely that you should be._

_But what has been done is done._

_In the event that I shall return, I will fix what I have broken, and monsterkind will be free once more. However, if this is the last you ever hear of me, I want to make sure there are some things you know unequivocally._

_First and foremost: I love you and Papyrus, more than I could ever describe in words–and although I am deeply sorry, you must know that I am doing this for your sake._

_Sans Serif Gaster, your mother and I have raised you well. For the past ten years I have been by your side, and although it will be difficult, I am fully confident in your ability to care for both yourself and Papyrus in my absence._

_Carry on for me, my son, even when I am not there._

_Even if I never will be again._

_Yours eternally–your father and friend,_

_Wing Din Gaster_

With that sign-off, it was done.

Writing his final letter to his son had worn Wing out more than any battle ever could. Sinking to his desk with his face in his hands, he felt the amethyst sparks fading from his palms.

 _Goodbye, Sans,_  he thought as he folded the letter and slid it into his last crisp envelope.

It was dark outside, the Underground's light dimming, and it occurred to him that this could be the last nighttime he ever saw.

Tomorrow, the CORE–and his deepest secret–would be waiting.


	44. Showtime

_Nyssa_

Alphys fidgeted for a while after Adrian took the letter, as if she were debating on whether to say something or not. It was during the Royal Scientist's silence that Nyssa heard it: a crash, resonating from deep underneath the building. And another.

"Uhh… Alphys? What is that?" Nyssa asked, trying not to sound too alarmed.

The Royal Scientist paled. "O-oh… um… t-there's something I kinda f-f-f-forgot to tell y-you, with all this e-excitement and all…"

Adrian's eyes widened. "Alphys?"

"It's a little t-tiny issue…" she stammered. "A l-long time ago, I m-may have made an entertainer r-r-robot named M-Mettaton? And I m-may or may n-not have added some p-practical features… like… anti-human c-combat abilities?"

"What!"

"W-when I watched you through my c-console… well… it made me r-r-root for you, you know? So I tried to t-turn off those f-features… b-but… um… I m-may have made a t-t-teensy mistake and now he's an u-unstoppable killing machine?"

"A  _teensy mistake?"_ Adrian repeated incredulously, terror tinging his voice. "You call that small? Please don't tell us that's him right now," he added. The thumps from downstairs had started up again.

"H-hey… even if it's Mettaton... I've got him under c-control…! If the hardware a-adjustments went w-wrong… I'll just try using g-good old persuasion! D-don't worry! Stay up h-here, okay? I'll h-handle it!" Before either human could say a word, Alphys bolted down the escalator.

Nyssa and Adrian stood in silence, too overwhelmed by the situation to talk or even argue. The crashes increased in volume and frequency until they stopped–Mettaton was right below them.

"H-h-hey!" Alphys called out, her voice quavering. Nyssa imagined the tiny orange lizard facing a hulking automaton the height of the ceiling. "W-what's up, Mettaton?"

"It's just you?" came the mechanical reply. Something in Mettaton's voice summoned the image of jagged metal. "Funny."

"Y-yeah… uhh… Mettaton? I h-have something i-important to d-discuss with you."

"Oh yes? A new show? Maybe… have you found some humans for me to kill? That would make for a heck of an episode, yes… I like this idea..."

"N-no!" Alphys yelped. "A-actually…"

"Fame! Even more fame!" Mettaton interrupted. "Oh Alphys, darling, you're a genius. My ratings will  _soar!"_

"Mettaton! P-please listen!"

"The Underground will love me!"

"L-listen!" Alphys snapped. "The U-Underground  _already_  l-loves you! It's only publicity you c-care about, anyway…" she added dejectedly. "But n-no… I'm actually here to ask y-you to n-not want to kill humans so much? Pretty p-p-please?"

"Why not?" Mettaton sounded genuinely bewildered.

"B-because they're… ugh. T-trust me, okay? I don't w-want you to k-kill anybody anymore. Especially not these  _p-particular_  humans. They k-know so much about this p-place. It's not like I could g-g-gain anything by t-trying to help them. My idea isn't w-working anymore."

Nyssa turned to Adrian, Alphys's last sentence catching her completely off guard.  _What?_ "She wanted to  _gain something_  from us?" she whispered disbelievingly.

"Ahh… you know what strikes me as interesting?" Mettaton asked Alphys, his metallic voice coated in honey. "You talk almost like you've  _met_  these humans. Who knows… could they even be right here?"

Nyssa bit back a shriek–the rectangular screen of a robot was visible now at the bottom of the escalator, "looking" up at her. He was a boxy gray machine with a single wheel, two arms extending from his sides. He tapped his fingers together as he looked the petrified humans up and down before turning back to Alphys.

"Certainly interesting. You've been hiding not one, but  _two_  lovely specimens up there! Haven't you, Alphys? Well… come down, darlings. It's showtime!"

Neither Nyssa nor Adrian moved an inch.

"Mettaton, please don't do this," Alphys begged.

"Sorry, sweetie," the robot replied, "but this is showbiz, after all. Now, let me say it one more time:  _come downstairs."_

They still refused.

"Guess I'll have to be more convincing," Mettaton said cheerfully. With the push of a button on his control panel, the escalators stopped and folded themselves into ramps, allowing him to roll upstairs on his one wheel. Nyssa and Adrian backed toward the other escalator in Alphys's room as Mettaton closed the distance between them. He turned to Alphys's worktable, and terror swallowed Nyssa whole when she remembered the assortment of power tools hanging there. The robot hefted Alphys's chainsaw off the table before activating it.

"M-Mettaton… put that down and t-turn the escalators back!" Alphys yelled, drowned out by the whirr of the chainsaw. "Nonononono… d-don't you dare!"

Mettaton happily ignored her. "Downstairs," he repeated monotonously, moving toward the humans with blade in hand.

_Xandre_

It was hard to tell in Waterfall, but Xandre sensed that it was getting dark.

He had been looking forward to this. Nighttime was when he could sleep, giving himself to the void and to Chara. Although it was not very late yet, the notion of seeing her face again was enough to make Xandre call it a day.

The foaming cataract Nyssa and Adrian had bypassed was now little more than a trickle–eerily silent, like the rest of the Underground. Xandre easily found the cavern behind it and crawled in for shelter, dumping his pack in a corner. His eyes took a while to adjust to the murkiness, but once he did, a glint of pink on the ground caught his eye.

_[A... tutu?]_

_{Who knows where that came from. And look up–someone's drawn on the wall.}_

Chara was right–carved on the blue stone and lovingly painted was an indigo heart shape. Next to it were fresher markings which captured his attention instantly: three Wingdings letters, spelling out  _RIP._ "Rest in peace." Looking more closely, he realized that there was blood smeared all around the writing.

 _[The other two humans have been here,]_  Xandre realized, looking over the Wingdings. No one else could have etched those characters with such precision.

_{That's for sure. But how long ago, there's no way to tell.}_

_[We'll deal with it in the morning,]_ Xandre resolved.  _[Now I should sleep, so we can really see each other again.]_

_{Good night, Xandre. I'll see you soon.}_

_Adrian_

"G-go," Adrian sputtered, practically pushing Nyssa toward the escalator. "We have no choice."

"M-m-mettaton, stop that r-right now!" Alphys continued to shriek from downstairs.

"Sorry, darling," the robot replied emotionlessly as Nyssa and Adrian scrambled down the escalator in front of him. His beeping sounded downright smug. Every time Adrian looked over his shoulder, Mettaton waved the chainsaw, spurring him on. Both humans hit the floor running.

"There's a door over there!" Nyssa yelled, sprinting for the closed back exit of the Lab. Adrian followed suit, banging frustratedly at the metal as the whirring of Mettaton's chainsaw came closer.  _Alphys controls the doors._  "Alphys, let us out!" he demanded.

"W-wait…" the lizard stammered.

"Your little science project over here is about to  _kill_  us–"

Just as Adrian said that, Mettaton was on them, and the room became pitch dark.

_Xandre_

"Chara," Xandre breathed. There she was in front of him again. From where he stood, she almost seemed as if she were glowing, color blooming anew in her skin and her eyes. In fact, she almost looked  _alive._ Briefly and rather egocentrically, Xandre wondered if his actions had contributed to this change in her. She made her way to him with an overexaggerated kind of grace, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

She was poking fun with him. Xandre grinned. Far from home, Chara was the only person he had who understood him, who could make him feel this way– _the only person he had,_  period.

Most of him didn't even mind that.

"You're sure the Determination is all we need?" Chara asked, referring to what she and Xandre had discussed earlier. "And that Undyne's will be enough?"

"Judging by Wing's memories of the machine, yes."

Using whatever was left of Chara's soul, the structure Wing had built could theoretically give her back a physical body. Three things were essential for a human's existence: a body, a soul, and Determination.  _After Chara is given back all three…_

Xandre's breath caught in his throat just imagining it.

She would no longer be a shade in his mind but a person, a flesh-and-blood  _person,_  standing by his side. They could be partners for eternity.

Originally, Chara must have included Xandre in her plans because she could not accomplish them without him. Xandre agreed because he was willing to put up with her for his own benefit. It had been a strange kind of symbiosis, mutual dependency that came with being joined at the soul.

Now, though… everything had changed.

And all he and Chara would have to do was kill Undyne and get to the CORE first.

_Easier said than done._

"Nyssa and Adrian are clearly way ahead of us. How are we supposed to pass by them without them knowing?"

"Give up on killing the monsters," Chara decided. "It's slowed us down too much thus far, and it'll draw too much attention. Lay low and focus on getting to the CORE as fast as you can, alive. After you revive me with the machine, we can double back…" Chara's voice hitched. "Together."

 _Together,_  Xandre repeated in his mind. It sent a thrill through him.

"Try your best not to die," Chara continued. "If you can't avoid meeting a monster, be… um… pacifistic. Relatively. You don't want to tip anybody off."

"Pacifistic. Got it."

"Right. Avoid Undyne–and Alphys–at all costs, until we have an opportunity to attack her."

"Mm-hm."

The two of them were silent for a while, contemplative, until Xandre had a thought. Giving Chara a look, he experimentally signed a few words. The void was suddenly awash in blue light, and a few dozen symbols drifted lazily in the air between him and Chara.

She laughed in wonder. "Wow," she murmured.

"Amazing, right?" With a flick of his wrist, Xandre made the symbols line up before they dissipated into the darkness.

Chara slid closer to him before he realized it, caught his hand in her own and brushed her finger over the glowing soul mark there. An electrical pulse shot up Xandre's arm when her skin made contact. It was a good feeling, an unusual warmth, and he found himself squeezing her hand back.

That was the first time they'd touched since…

_Oh jeez, the kiss._

They were close enough now for a familiar scent to drift into Xandre's nose, instantly reminding him of that night. It was that unusual, sharp smell he remembered, similar to the vaguely acrid taste of her lips.

In fact…

The realization struck Xandre at once, and he struggled to keep his face neutral.

_That smell._

_It reminds me of poison._

_Nyssa_

"Oh, yes!" Mettaton boomed, his voice amplified as if by a speaker. "Welcome, beauties, to today's quiz show!"

A single light flickered on, spotlighting Mettaton and Alphys beside him. Colored lights lowered from the ceiling and sent rainbow sparks shooting across the room. In bits and pieces, Nyssa glimpsed Adrian next to her. Alphys cast her eyes determinedly at the floor.

"Never played before, I see… well, you're in luck. There is only one simple rule: answer correctly, or  _you die!"_

If a calculator with arms could be excited, Mettaton certainly looked that way.

"Let's start with an easy one. What's the prize for answering correctly?" A timer blinked to life on Mettaton's screen, counting down thirty seconds.

Adrian gulped. "M-more questions?"

"Right! What is the king's full name?"

Next to Mettaton, Alphys began fidgeting, and looked at Nyssa pleadingly.

 _Don't worry. Wing knew, of course._ "Asgore Dreemurr."

"What a terrific answer!" The robot hesitated, tapping his fingers together. "This is no fun. Time to break out the big guns! In the game 'Mew Mew Kissy Cutie', what is Mew Mew's favorite food?"

Nyssa didn't even have time to think  _we're screwed_  before Alphys perked up, waving her hand frantically in the air. "Oh! Oh! I know! S-snail ice cream! In the fourth chapter she gets ice cream for all her friends but she's the only one who likes it and it's one of my favorite moments because it's actually a meaningful lesson about… friendship…?" Feeling Mettaton's "glare" on her, Alphys lost steam. "A-and… eheheh…?"

"Alphys, Alphys, Alphys," Mettaton chided, wagging a finger condescendingly at her. "You aren't  _helping_  our lovely contestants, are you? You should have told me, dear! Now here's a question you will  _surely_  know the answer to!" Turning back to Nyssa and Adrian, Mettaton asked, "Who does Dr. Alphys have a crush on?"

"W-what?!" Alphys sputtered, orange cheeks turning pink. "W-what… n-no!"

"H-hey… we don't know!" Nyssa cried. "Help!"

_10._

"B-b-but…!" the lizard sputtered.

_9._

_8._

Nyssa's heart slammed in her chest every time the number on Mettaton's screen changed.  _"Alphys!_  Please! Not now!"

_7._

_6._

"We're not judging you for anything! Besides, it's either you tell us about your crush or we die!"

_5._

_4._

_3._

_2._

"F-f-f-f-f-fine!" Alphys cried. "It's U-undyne, okay? Yeah, I'll s-s-say it. I have a c-crush on Undyne!"

_1._

They didn't think, or stop to process the information. "The answer is Undyne!" Nyssa and Adrian yelled out at once.

_0._

"It's true, it's true," Mettaton confirmed mischievously. "She scrawls her name in the margins of her notes. She names programming variables after her. She even writes  _stories_  of them together, sharing a domestic life! Probability of crush: 101 percent. Margin of error: one percent."

Alphys whimpered, burying her face in her hands.

"Well, well, well. With Dr. Alphys helping you, this show has no dramatic tension! Good thing this was just the pilot episode! Coming up: more drama, more romance,  _more bloodshed!_  Until next time, my darlings!" Mettaton's arms and wheel retracted into his body. Like a rocket, he blasted out of the Lab as abruptly as he had entered, leaving Nyssa reeling in the smoke.


	45. Unanswered

_Adrian_

"J-j-jeez…" Alphys stammered, her face flushed. "T-that was certainly s-something."

"So... Undyne, huh?"

"P-please, s-s-s-stop!"

"I didn't mean it  _that_  way," Nyssa amended. "Just… she talked about you, too. When she… uh… confronted us."  _Aaaaaand we may or may not have used your name to prevent Undyne from killing us._

"She… d-did?" Alphys sputtered. "W-what'd she s-say?!"

"Just something about human history books."

"O-oh," the Royal Scientist said, dejected.

_Telling her I used Wingdings against Undyne is not the best idea._

Alphys bit her lip. "W-well… t-that last question… he w-wasn't supposed to ask it, anyway. W-well, uh, if you g-give me your phone, I can add m-my number."

Nyssa pulled it out of her pocket and gave it to the lizard.

"W-what  _is_  this?!" Alphys shrieked. "Where did you even get it? It's  _a-ancient!_  It doesn't even have texting! Give me a s-second, please." Several mechanical screeches later, she emerged with a slightly shinier metal rectangle. "Here, it's been upgraded f-for you. W-with texting, interdimensional s-storage… even U-Undernet. You d-d-do remember how to u-use it, right?"

"Yeah," Adrian replied, already scrolling through the features with Nyssa watching over his shoulder (and digging up the account  _Wingdings_17,_ which had been inactive for the last seventeen years).

"S-so I guess th-that means we're officially f-f-friends now!" Alphys giggled nervously. "H-heh… anyway… d-do you guys mind staying the night here, at least? I can s-set up some mats in my room. Safer h-here than in the r-rest of Hotland. P-p-plus, it's n-not every day I see h-h-humans in the Lab," she admitted, a trace of giddiness in her voice. "I g-guess you could say I'm a human f-fan."

"Yeah, I think we can stick around overnight."

"I'd vastly prefer this over taking our chances out  _there,"_  Nyssa agreed. "Just one thing... are you sure Mettaton won't, you know, sneak in and kill us?"

"Mettaton always has better things to d-do than come here," Alphys replied. "That's n-not something to worry about. It's not l-l-like... it's not like I, or this p-p-place, matter to him all that m-much," she added dejectedly. "Well, come on. Let's g-go upstairs."

_Nyssa_

_For a dead person, that's a huge number of unread messages._  That was the first thought which crossed Nyssa's mind when she reopened Wing's Undernet account.

The contact at the top of his list was Alphys.

_Seventeen years ago_

**ALPHYS:**  sans told me u would be out today. sorry i didn't wake up before u left

 **WING:**  Hello Alphys. Yes, I am outside today.

Please finish your homework and make dinner with Sans and Papyrus.

By the way, I forgot to tell you I like the way your robotics project is looking.

 **ALPHYS:**  thanks. but we're going to miss u

u know how papyrus gets

 **WING:**  Tell Papyrus he'll see me tomorrow and read him his bedtime story when he needs it.

Don't stay up waiting for me

I will be home very late, and you need your sleep.

 **ALPHYS:**  k fine v.v

 **WING:**  What is "v.v"?

 **ALPHYS:**  its an emoticon lol

 **WING:**  All right, then.

...

Alphys?

 **ALPHYS:**  What is it?

 **WING:**  ...

It's nothing.

Keep an eye on Papyrus while I'm gone?

 **ALPHYS:**  sure. ily

 **WING:**  See you tomorrow morning, Alphys.

 **ALPHYS:**  bye dad

_**-20 unread messages below-** _

_1 day later_

**ALPHYS:** dad where ru

papyrus is throwing a tantrum cuz i told him you'd be home by now

i told him to stop punching his brother but it's not working...

it's dinnertime already

_2 days later_

**ALPHYS:** ru reading this?

what's going on

y aren't u back yet

_3 days later_

**ALPHYS:**  it wasn't supposed to take this long was it

dad please come back

dad why are the king and queen coming to the lab

_4 days later_

**ALPHYS:** We need you back now.

Sans, Papyrus and I can't deal with this.

Everyone is convinced you're dead.

They even said they'll start searching for a new Royal Scientist soon.

This is serious.

I refuse to believe something happened to you.

We can't have you leave now.

Please just answer me and say something back. Anything

please

_5 days later_

**ALPHYS:**  please

**_-No further messages-_ **

_Memory_

Even in the Underground, the weather was unusually turbulent, wind screaming down each corridor of Waterfall. Bracing against the gales, Wing clutched a sheaf of paper against his dark robe. To return to the Lab, he'd have to hitch a ride with River Person– _River Person,_ who'd never seemed to like him much...

Just as he was thinking that, an especially strong gust caught the corner of a single sheet.

Internally cursing the fact that his hands were occupied, Wing had no choice but to chase the rogue document. To his horror, it blew down the corridor more rapidly than he could possibly pursue it.

He ran faster.

 _No, no, no,_  Wing thought, watching it turn the corner into the Garbage Dump. The sewer water would destroy it instantly. Chasing a fading hope, he went the way it had gone. Miraculously, it had snagged on the edge of some rusted metal, and Wing snatched it up. Reeling from the near miss, he took a moment to catch his breath. That was when the faintest of wails caught his attention.

"Who's there?" Wing called out cautiously, moving in the direction of the sound.

He could've sworn he heard a squeak and a muffled sniffle.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"H-hello?" A quivering voice returned. So Wing hadn't just imagined it. "Over here. B-behind this mound of trash."

Following the voice, Wing looked behind the massive pile of trash bags and saw her. A scrap of a lizard monster. She had curled in on herself, covering her face with her tail, and clutched a DVD box as if it were her lifeline. Wing had never been one for sentiment, but seeing her there, he could too easily imagine Sans or Papyrus in her place. She was a child, just like his own sons were–helpless.

When she heard Wing approach, she raised her head incrementally before cowering back. "P-please," she whimpered, "d-don't..."

"I meant it when I said I won't hurt you," Wing replied. He looked her over carefully: dirty scales, tiny trembling body. "Someone as young as you are should be at home. What happened?"

"I  _h-have_  no home."

"What do you mean?"

"M-my parents l-left me here to  _d-d-d-die,"_  the tiny monster whispered. "They t-told me to stay until they c-came back... it's been two d-d-days... I guess I should've known they l-lied. They never w-wanted me anyway. B-beat me and everything."

"I can't believe it. That kind of thing can't just go unreported! It's terrible what your parents did to you. The Royal Guard needs to get involved." Softening his tone, he asked, "what's your name?"

"M-my name is Alphys. And y-you... w-wait a second." Finally raising her head, Alphys's eyes widened in recognition. "W-wait... I know y-you... everyone does! You're Wing Gaster! the R-Royal Scientist! W-wow... I guess you've got b-better things to d-d-do than talk to m-me... I'm so s-sorry for holding you up. I've always w-wanted to be a scientist like you are," she added quietly. "H-heh... I know that's s-stupid."

"No, wait, that's not stupid. Hold that thought."

_It never hurts to have extra assistants in the Lab, especially with the whole CORE project going on. Besides, more help leaves me free to work on... other things._ _Helvetica won't mind this, either. Sans and Papyrus will enjoy having a companion, at least until Alphys finds some permanent place. In the event that she doesn't... well, if she proves herself to be a bright kid, I could mentor her._

_Hm._

_I can't leave a child here._

_Perhaps more importantly, I can't leave an_ opportunity _here._

"Alphys, do you want to come with me?"

_Xandre_

"If I remember correctly, we still have to pass through Waterfall and Hotland before we reach the CORE," Chara thought aloud. "Somewhere in Waterfall is Undyne's house, and near the beginning of Hotland is the Lab. I have a feeling Undyne will hunt us up until there."

"If we know she's following us… we could set some kind of trap? An ambush?" Xandre tried.

"I don't know, Xandre. But remind me, what do we do once she's dead?"

"The details are fuzzy, but it's got something to do with a machine that extracts Determination."

"You think you can get that figured out soon?"

"Hopefully."

"Good. Well, I have a feeling it's getting brighter outside. You should wake up. Remember, don't kill anyone–"

"Lay low. Yeah."

Not yet willing to give himself to the waking world, Xandre paused. Chara held his gaze. It was neither a cold stare nor a romantic one–it was strangely indifferent, yet probing.

 _Who even are you?_  Xandre wondered, not for the first time, as he searched the eyes of the girl he had dared to love. Her perfect stillness betrayed nothing.

"See you tonight," he finally said.

_Adrian_

"Y-you two should p-probably get going," Alphys stuttered in the morning. "Don't want to be a h-hassle or anything. H-hit me up if you n-n-need anything, okay? I g-gotta go to the bathroom." With that, she darted behind a silver sliding door, and it hissed shut behind her.

Adrian eyed the door. Something about it didn't seem quite right, although he couldn't remember why.

Almost right after they set foot outside the Lab, the phone beeped.

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_ just realized i didn't watch undyne fight the human v.v

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ well i know she's unbeatable i'll ask her abt it later ^.^

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ i wonder if the humans need help? i should check in =^.^=

Nyssa pocketed the phone. "We should pick up the pace. Let's go."

_Xandre_

A scuffling reached Xandre's ear, and he turned.

His game bag was wriggling.

_What!_

Before he could move any closer, a fluffy white head pushed out of the pack. It was a puppy: tiny pricked ears, pink tongue hanging out. It looked at him, wide-eyed, and yapped once. To Xandre's horror, crumbs clung to the edges of its mouth.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Did you seriously…?"

"Arf."

_[My food.]_

"Get out, you crazy creature!" When the dog didn't budge, Xandre feinted toward it, and it trundled to the safety of the cave mouth. The longer he looked at it, the more unsettled Xandre became. This  _thing_  was no mere puffball.

"G-go!"

The dog raised its head, met Xandre's eye, and let out a soft growl. Despite the dog's tiny size, Xandre felt his heart slam in his chest, and backed up. The light in the animal's eyes had become dark. Vengeful, almost. As if it knew exactly what he had done. Xandre clutched the hilt of his knife.  _"Go!"_  he repeated, jabbing his blade.

The dog did not protest. Giving him one last knowing look, it turned and scampered away.

Xandre forced himself to take inventory. His hands trembled as he rifled through his bag, confirming his fears: there was no food left.

He could not help but look up once in a while, dreading the sight of soft white fur.

_Adrian_

Thrust over by a burst of steam, Nyssa landed on solid ground next to Adrian. In one hand, she held the battered frying pan she found earlier. "We grew up in Hotland, didn't we?" she said suddenly. "I mean… Wing did?"

The air here did feel thick not only with steam but with memory, years of it layering on top of each other. "I think so," Adrian replied. It hit him yet again that although his body was unfamiliar to the Underground, his mind and soul were not. No wonder he and Nyssa had become so close so quickly. The last time they were here, their souls had been one. He had known Nyssa even before he saw her for the first time. When they met, he'd reunited with his oldest of friends.

His thoughts were cut short by a notification sound from their cell phone. Nyssa pulled it out of her pocket.

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ omg why is it so hard to just call

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ help ive had my claw over the last digit for 5 minutes... omg im just gonna do it omg im just gonna call them

_Ring…_

Adrian opened his mouth to answer, but Alphys hung up.

"Um… okay?"

_Ring…_

This time, Alphys stayed. "Th-there's some lasers in front of you," she stammered. "I've d-deactivated them. G-go through there, and y-you'll see a large d-door, with puzzles on the l-left and right. Solve the p-puzzles and unlock th-the door. G-got it?"

"Sure."

"I'll t-try to help you, whenever y-y-you need it. Also.. uh… I'll t-try to keep M-mettaton at bay wh-whenever I can, but… uh… as you s-saw, he's n-not very easy to p-persuade. If you r-run into him, b-be careful, okay? Y-your cell phone has a j-jetpack feature, th-though it'll only work for one p-p-person at a time. C-can you… can you do m-magic?"

"Yeah, we've done it before."

"I'd trust Nyssa with it more than myself," Adrian added dryly.

"Okay, that'll work to w-ward Mettaton off. J-just remember that whatever y-you do will p-p-probably be on TV. It'll draw a l-l-lot of attention."

"Yeah."

Silent, Adrian suddenly remembered what Alphys had said to Mettaton earlier.  _"It's not like I could gain anything from trying to help them."_

"Alphys, do you remember when you tried to talk Mettaton out of attacking? What did you mean when you said you couldn't-"

Something snarled loudly, and Adrian whipped around before realizing it was coming out of Alphys's end of the phone. "N-not now," the Royal Scientist pleaded faintly. "Not now." The guttural sound came again, sending shivers down Adrian's spine. There was rustling, as if Alphys fell backward.

"Alphys, what is that?" Adrian sputtered, interrogation plan forgotten.

"In a moment, in a m-m-moment," she continued to whimper, oblivious. "I'll get the f-f-f-food, I p-promise, if you'll j-j-just let me g-go upstairs. P-please m-m-move aside."

Deeply disturbed, Adrian exchanged a petrified glance with Nyssa. "What in the world," Nyssa whispered.

"Alphys!" Adrian said, louder.

"Oh!" Alphys yelped. "Y-yeah! Uh… I'm so s-sorry! P-please excuse me! This is n-nothing!"

"I don't think 'nothing' can make sounds like that!"

"J-just stop! L-leave me alone!" Tears and desperation tinged Alphys's voice, and Adrian wasn't even sure if she was still talking to him. "Y-you weren't supposed to h-hear any of this! S-stay quiet about it, u-understand?"

"We can't just-"

"Goodbye!" she shrieked, before the line went dead.

Nyssa and Adrian stood for a while in terrified silence.

"What just happened?" Nyssa finally asked in a very small voice.

"I… have no idea. Wh-who knew? I don't remember anything about this from before."

"Seriously, what kind of  _thing_  is she hiding, and where? D-do you think she's been hurt?"

"Let's call her back and find out," Adrian resolved.

The phone only beeped once before words appeared across the screen:  _CALL DECLINED._


	46. Sister Dear

_Adrian_

"You know what… I can't deal with this. I'm texting her," Nyssa sputtered. "Whatever that was, it's actually scaring me. A lot. I have no idea what Alphys is doing, wherever she is, but  _that…"_

"It's bothering me too, but…"

Without waiting for him to finish, Nyssa sent out a text. Adrian clenched his jaw.

 **WING:**  Alphys?

(Adrian gave a start, before remembering that Nyssa was on Wing's old account.)

 **WING:** What in the world just happened?

Did you just leave us on "read"?

 **ALPHYS:** yes

She gave no other reply.

"It's not our business anyway," Adrian pointed out.

"Something completely freaky just happened while we were on the phone with Alphys, and she's not explaining it. Maybe it wasn't before, but it's  _becoming_  our business."

"There's nothing we can do if Alphys won't talk," Adrian reasoned. He didn't want to get into another argument.  _If only disagreements didn't flare up randomly like this._

"We could at least try."

"We  _have_  tried. She's not spitting anything out! We should move forward, anyway. Alphys's deal can probably wait, but the other human won't."

"You're saying 'Alphys's deal' can  _wait?"_  Nyssa replied incredulously.

"As I said, we can't do anything about it. Our best option is to keep going."

_Xandre_

Indignant, furious, and terrified, Xandre emerged from the cave with his pack tight over his shoulder and his knife brandished in front of him. Even Chara stayed silent in her corner of his mind.

After a quick scan of the area confirming the white dog's absence, Xandre continued ahead. He sheathed his knife, remembering Chara's advice to lay low. Wing's magic was good enough self-defense anyway. Pushing through a thicket of tall grass, Xandre turned a corner and found Bridge Flowers.

Neither he nor Chara noticed the armored figure who entered the corridor just then. Twirling a spear in one hand, she looked straight down the tunnel and saw nothing unusual. "Guess that damn human's not here either," she muttered to herself.

She had forgotten to check the Bridge Flower niche, and just missed Xandre.

_Nyssa_

Puzzles were always interesting, but it was impossible for Nyssa to focus on them when Alphys's last call gnawed at the back of her mind.

_"In a moment, in a moment."_

_"I'll get the food, I promise."_

Frustratingly slowly, Nyssa felt the pieces almost assemble themselves–the growls, Alphys's pleading, some mention of "food"–only for them to scatter apart again, just like the puzzle she was working on. Just when she thought she had it, she would always discover something new in the way.

With one last keystroke, her side of the puzzle slid into place (unlike her wonderings about Alphys), and she went to the other room to find Adrian.

A golden flower burrowed back into the ground right before she got there.

_Xandre_

About to take a step, Xandre yelled when he felt something push out of the ground under his foot. He quickly yanked back his leg and stumbled.

_"Flowey?"_

"Old friend," the sentient flower chuckled with a new glint in his eye, "I have news for you. Long time no see."

"I'm not your-"

"Oh, I'm not talking to you," Flowey replied smugly. Seeing Xandre's look of bewilderment, his smile grew broader. "I mean  _her."_

_[You?]_

_{Me!?}_

"Yes, idiot," the flower sighed, as if he could read Xandre's mind. "You do realize I know she's there?"

"How?" Xandre sputtered.

"I wasn't sure when I talked to you before, but now I know without a doubt. It's not so hard to feel her soul beating in you. After all, I've had her Determination inside me, too–back when she was full of it. Before I turned into… this."

_[Who is he?]_

_{Who is he?}_ Chara's voice trembled, suddenly vulnerable.

"Who  _are_  you?"

"Oh, what an interesting aside. Although I'm sure you know already," Flowey replied smoothly.  _"Sister dear."_

_{How? This isn't possible. Flowey can't be him.}_

_[Explain...]_

Seeing Xandre's bewildered expression, Flowey grinned again. "Confused? Why don't you let  _her_  tell you?"

_{What… tell you what?}_

"Just start from the beginning, sis. Go on, I'll wait for you to finish. Tell him."

_{This can't be-}_

_[Just explain! Please.]_

_{Fine.}_

_{I was born on the surface,}_ Chara began,  _{like you. I grew up in a village at the foot of Mount Ebott–the mountain I'd hear horror tales about. I didn't take them to heart. My parents loved scaring me, after all, but they didn't love_ me.  _I was an accident, and they weren't in a position to take proper care of me, so they decided not to try. Beatings and starvation were my childhood.}_

Xandre wasn't used to Chara sounding this fragile, this vulnerable. He trembled, feeling Flowey's gaze on him. The flower nodded indulgently, as if he too were listening to Chara's tale. "Let her continue," he said.

_{Although I got good at hiding it, every blow broke me inside. Nobody helped me, because nobody else knew. Finally, when I was eleven, I had enough. I lost it. I ran. I made it up Mount Ebott, where I planned to take my own life. And there, guess what I found? The entrance to the Underground.}_

_{At that point I didn't even care that the stories were real. All I saw in the chasm was a good place to commit suicide. I might've regretted it in the half second before I hit the bottom, but that didn't matter anymore, did it? I never expected to wake up, but I did, and a fuzzy little goat monster was watching me.}_

_[Goat monster…? A Dreemurr?]_

_{Prince Asriel Dreemurr. He terrified me in the beginning because he was a monster, but he was shockingly nice. He brought me home to his mom and dad, and before I knew it, I was the Underground's new princess. For the first time, I was cared for. A few months later, Dr. Gaster died.}_

_[That's when I was born... If you're so much older than me, how–]_

_{Not sure, but I'm_ getting  _there. Anyway. One day, Asriel and I came up with a plan to collect seven human souls and break the barrier. It was so stupid, but we really thought we could save everyone. So Asriel could absorb my soul, I killed myself for real. I ate buttercup flowers. We merged, Asriel crossed the barrier, and we went into my village. We were going to… get six more souls. But the humans got us first.}_

Here, Chara hesitated, and Xandre envisioned her swallowing hard.  _{They saw Asriel holding my body and beat him so hard. So mercilessly. Right then and there, I remembered just how much I hate the whole goddamn human race. Asriel could've killed them all in one fell swoop, but he held back and just let them hit him. His fur wasn't white anymore, Xandre. It was all red. All blood. And he didn't lift a finger to stop them. By the time I persuaded him to turn back, he was half dead, and we got as far as Asgore's garden before we couldn't walk anymore.}_

Chara's voice actually broke on the last word, as if the trauma she recounted was too much for her to bear. Something twisted in Xandre's chest. It had happened long ago but the pain in her voice was fresh, like a healing wound ripped open again.

Everything about this was so unusual.

Chara was supposed to be the cunning girl in his head. Icy calm. In control. And so, so determined. She wasn't the trembling creature he imagined her to be now, old agony returning to break her a second time.

_She broke in front of me. No glamour, no mask._

_She let me see it all._

_Chara…_

He imagined reaching out to her in the dark, letting her tears seep into his skin, clasping her pale hands.  _My partner, my second soul. We need to carry on together._

_{We were tired. So tired. Asriel slumped down onto the flowers, and those golden petals were the last thing I saw. Next time I became conscious, I was lying on a bed of buttercups again. Except I wasn't seeing through Asriel's eyes anymore.}_

_[You were seeing through mine.]_

_{I_ was _seeing through yours.}_

_[So you were frozen in death. A ghost, preserved over untold years.]_

_{Until you came along.}_  Chara sounded like she was going to say something else, but Flowey interrupted before she could. "Finished?"

If it weren't for Chara's decision to keep him around and  _this_  new development, Xandre might have signed something deadly at the plant. "Yes. That's all," he grudgingly replied instead.

"Where did she leave off?"

_{Just tell him.}_

Xandre shot Flowey a glare. "When she and Prince Asriel were in the garden."

"Yes. You see, that's also where I woke up, right at the spot where the prince's body turned to dust. I got his memories, you see. I remember  _everything. Every last little detail._ You remember your spooky face, sis? Or that stupid sweater you knitted for Asgore? When I say I remember everything, I mean  _everything."_

_{No.}_

"You see? I'm him. Your beloved brother, back from the dead. Except I'm missing the most important thing, aren't I? Asriel's memories transferred to this body, but his soul didn't."

_[A completely soulless entity. Neither human nor monster.]_

_{Flowey... Asriel?}_


	47. Persist

_Xandre_

"Now you know," Flowey concluded brightly. "My story. Of course, there's more, but I'd rather save the  _fun_  stuff for later–wouldn't you? Back to my news. I saw Nyssa and Adrian."

"Flowey, you go this whole time and you don't–"

"They're in Hotland, solving puzzles," Flowey interrupted. "I think they were on a call with the Royal, quote-unquote, Scientist. Alphys."

"That's it? After all  _that?_ "

"So impatient! For now, yes, it is. Don't worry–I've been helping you keep an eye on our two friends."

"Good."

"And Xandre? I've got more stories to tell, so don't you worry. But for now, take good care of my sister and have fun. She likes you lots, you know."

_{Weed! Shut up!}_

_[Chara!]_

"Thanks for everything so far. Thanks for letting my sweet sister have your soul. It's not like mine was, but it'll do, and  _I swear she likes yours even more._  Don't you, sis? Until next time!"

Before Xandre could say anything more, the flower burrowed back into the ground and disappeared.

_Nyssa_

The kitchen looked cheerful, artificially so, randomly placed in the humans' way. A single fading spotlight illuminated the whole scene, complete with a refrigerator, a stove, and a window that showed fake clouds rolling by.

"It's a set," Adrian mused aloud.

"For Mettaton's TV show?" Nyssa wondered, although the bloodthirsty robot was nowhere to be seen. Briefly, Nyssa wondered if Mettaton was  _supposed_  to be here. Of course, that train of thought led inevitably to Alphys, and from Alphys to that…  _thing._

"Maybe."

The two passed through the kitchen without incident. A long, wide pathway stretched out ahead of them, either side dropping off into sheer cliffs. Lava roiled far below, and Nyssa felt its heat on her face, its rippling orange glow lighting the way ahead.

"Look," Adrian began to say, but Nyssa was already turning around. In the distance, a building rose from the lava ocean, pipes and spires twisting their way into the ceiling of the underground chamber. The white shard in her soul strained for it, as if a rope tugged it toward the place where it had last been whole.

It was beautiful. In its haunting and ominous way, the view was beautiful, layered with memory and dread.

"The CORE. Where all this started."

"Yeah. It's still hard to believe we're looking at the place where it happened," Adrian remarked.

And although it was still far away, their destination was finally in sight.

_Memory_

"This is the first major project I'm proposing, for the lava oceans off Hotland." Wing unrolled the blueprint he had been working on as the King and Queen watched. They had brought their small son Asriel, who perched with an unchildlike dignity on Toriel's lap and watched Wing sign for Wingdings to hold up the poster as he spoke.

"Go on," Asgore prompted.

"Via a series of reactions here and here, initiated by the input of geothermal energy, this building would be able to convert heat into magical electricity. With the setup of an Underground-wide power grid, we could connect every chamber of the monster kingdom to what would become the central source of our electrical energy." Wing found himself picking up momentum as he spoke, deep in his element. "Adjustments could also be made to improve the connections in our cell phones and set up an  _internet_  of sorts, creating a wireless network throughout the Underground. The building itself would contain shifting hallways, and I'm considering even adding some puzzle designs, to make it seem a little like the rest of the Underground."

"I'm very impressed." The Wingdings labels were illegible to her but Toriel's eyes followed each line, taking in the way they twined together to shape an intricate building. "You've outdone yourself yet again, Royal Scientist."

"Thank you, your majesty," Wing managed. He still couldn't deny the thrill of being addressed by his new title, one that Cambria Neue had worn not a year before.

"Amazing," Asgore agreed. "And Wing, I thought we were beyond the 'your majesty's, hmm?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. My project is… still a work in progress, but with hope, construction will be able to start within a year. If you approve this, that is."

"You have certainly been approved."

"I second that," Toriel added.

"It's almost like…" Asgore thought for a while. "I know! It's like you're creating the  _core_  of the Underground, aren't you? That's what we should name this project–the CORE."

"I actually like that," Wing agreed. "The CORE project."

"I don't know where we would be without you." Toriel hesitated, and Wing wondered whether the queen thought of Helvetica when she added, "I'm glad we chose you."

"Thank you, your m- Toriel."

"You may go," the queen said with a light laugh. "I expect you have a lot of important science to do."

All this time, the child in her lap had not spoken a word. Something about Asriel held Wing's attention, maybe the brightness in his eyes that spoke of wisdom far beyond his years.  _The crown prince,_  Wing thought to himself,  _is certainly bound down an interesting path._

"Until next time, Toriel and Asgore. See you, Asriel."

"Bye," the prince finally squeaked.

Wing turned to leave, tucking the newly named CORE blueprints back into his inventory. Of course, the royal family had no way of knowing he had left out the most important part.  _A machine of my own creation, harnessing the Underground's magic to warp space and time._   _Well, they will know one day._

_If I succeed, everyone will finally learn the true purpose of this "project"._

_Nyssa_

They arrived at the door of an elevator labelled L1.

"I think we should take this–"

"Oblivious eyes are blind to what I see. I've been waiting for you, and you for me."

Both Nyssa and Adrian turned in the direction of the voice. Nyssa could've sworn that the monster wasn't there just a split second before, but now his presence was unmistakable. Covered in wiry gray fur, his lanky feline frame stood hunched in front of the elevator. When Nyssa blinked, the air around him turned fuzzy for a moment, shifting, glitching? He must have talked to them, but he fixed his gaze toward the horizon, toward the CORE.

"Excuse me?" Adrian said.

"Oblivious eyes are blind to what I see. I've been waiting for you, and you for me," the monster repeated, his voice wavering. His stare did not.

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand."

"Our young Dr. Alphys might work faster," he continued. "But the one who came before, Dr. Gaster? One day, he disappeared without a trace. They say he shattered across time and space."

Thoroughly unnerved, Nyssa said nothing. Her very soul trembled.

"Ha-ha. How can I say so without fear?" The monster let out a borderline deranged laugh, weak yet terrifying. His misted eyes passed over Nyssa and Adrian in turn. It was the same look Goner Kid had given them: as if he saw exactly what they were, who they used to be.

Then his gaze shifted upward, vaguely in the direction of the CORE but not quite. No, his focus was on something closer. Was it just Nyssa, or was he staring over her shoulder at  _someone_  who couldn't possibly be there with them?

"I'm… I'm…" his voice shook. "I'm looking at a piece of him right here."

He reached out one trembling paw.

"We should go," Nyssa blurted, pulling Adrian back and slapping the elevator button with her free hand.

"Yes, I'm aware. For one day, must we all?" the monster replied vaguely.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Nyssa urged her petrified friend, tugging Adrian into the elevator behind her. She pressed the button for "Right Floor 2", trying hard to appear less rattled than she felt.

Before the doors closed, a feline gaze locked with her own, and she heard one last line.

"Farewell to you who were born of his fall."

_Adrian_

The elevator began moving, humming slowly upward.

"That cat talking in poetic meter. He wasn't even looking at us when he said that last part, was he?" Nyssa said suddenly.

"He's like Goner Kid," Adrian realized. "Back in Waterfall. Goner Kid was speaking to somebody else, even though we were the only ones there."

"They're both totally colorless, they keep staring over our shoulders, and they talk creepily like  _that._ It's like they're both… slightly unhinged, or something."

"Maybe they're not the unhinged ones," Adrian said quietly. In that moment, he knew had hit something. He was sure now. This was important.

"What?"

 _"We're_  the ones who don't get it! Maybe they realize something that we should know, too." His thoughts rushing faster and faster, Adrian hesitated to continue. "You've felt a weird presence around us at random times, haven't you? Even when we were alone?"

"I have," Nyssa admitted. "Or I just know to do something out of the blue, like open the gray door. Sometimes there's even a physical pull on my soul. Like when I met  _you."_

"And of course there's the way we got drawn into the Underground in the first place," Adrian added. "I love my family, and I miss home. I know you do too. But  _something_  told us to drop everything and climb Mount Ebott, and we did."

"Yes… but Adrian, where are you going with that?"

The elevator doors slid silently apart, and the two humans stepped out onto the plain beyond. Instead of exploring the rest of Hotland right away, they walked to the opposite end of the ledge. It was quieter there–a better place to discuss  _this._

"All this time we've assumed he's just  _gone,_  haven't we?"

"You're talking about Wing."

"Yes. Exactly."

"But he can't be more than memory. I mean, if he's not gone, how–" Nyssa gestured at her own chest, where her soul would be.

"He… yes, his soul is in pieces, and he's physically dead. All that happened in the CORE incident. But what if there's more to it?" Visuals came in a rush now.  _The room behind the gray door. Xandre. Chara._ "What if…" he continued, choosing his words carefully. "What if there's still a way to  _persist_  after death, with neither body nor soul?"

He let that sink in for a moment, felt its weight curl around their shoulders.

"So you're saying that Wing might be  _alive_  somehow?"

"I… yes, that's what I'm saying."  _Wing, and someone else._  "Maybe it had something to do with the machine. I don't know, but there must be something else. Some missing part of the puzzle. I don't think he could have seen it coming–he was expecting success, or a painless death. Not…"

"Something in between. Some halfway state of existence."

"It's all just a thought," Adrian reminded her. "A hunch, I guess."

_A hunch and a feeble hope that she's still there, that somehow I can get her back. The sister I never knew._

_Nyssa_

Slumping behind yet another snow-covered booth was Sans, this time with his table piled high with neglected hot dogs. A green monster drifted away from him as they approached, clutching one in its talons and muttering something about the strange snow. It was funny that it hadn't melted… almost like the booth had been moved here recently.

"Toasty bun!" a volcano-shaped monster said with delight.

"Hey," Sans called dully. "It's you guys again." He shot the volcano monster a look. It shuffled away uncertainly, still clutching the hot-dog bun in its crater.

"Hi," Nyssa replied uncertainly, wondering if she should bring up all they had seen. "What's… up?"

"The human attacked my brother."

"Undyne was holding us captive when she went to save him," Nyssa said. "I know that by the time she got there, he was gone already."

"Right. The kid ran away." Sans's eyes went dark. "Say. If he catches up to you, you're doing something about that, aren't you?"

"Y-yes. We are." Nyssa felt cold sweat gather in her palms, and she wondered if she would really be able to act if they came face to face with Xandre. Being the one with magical powers, she would have to do the fighting, the confronting...

"We think he's going to the CORE," Adrian added.

 _The CORE._ "That reminds me. Sans, Alphys gave us something she thought you should see."

"She did, huh?"

"Here." Nyssa handed Sans the envelope from Wing, unsure how he would react when he scanned over the Wingdings on its outside. "It's… from your dad."

Limply, Sans accepted it and broke the seal. He read the entire letter in silence. Even though the humans were there, it was a private moment and Nyssa tried not to watch him too closely, tried not to notice the hundred emotions that flickered over his face in a split second.

"It's been quite a long time," Sans said after a while. "Why didn't Alphys give me this sooner?"

"She lost it,"

"So it's this," he said.

"What?"

"This secret he mentions, hidden in the CORE. That's what you three have been going for all this time, isn't it?"

"We think so."

Sans nodded slowly. "Well. On another note, the evacuations have started already, but we'll have to move faster to empty out Waterfall. Has Alphys been helping, on her end?"

"She doesn't know," Nyssa admitted.

_"What?"_

Both humans fidgeted in guilty silence.

"You didn't, you know,  _happen_  to mention that a murderous human is in the Underground right now?"

"We were planning to say something, but she–"

"It doesn't matter," Sans muttered. "Let her know. Call her, if you can."

Call her?

Call  _Alphys?_ Nyssa shivered, remembering the Royal Scientist's shaking voice. The guttural noises she had heard in the background when they called.  _Something very wrong has happened here._

"Uh, that's the thing," Adrian started hesitantly. "Last time we were on a call, she almost sounded like she was being  _attacked_ by something. She kept saying she 'had the food'."

An almost scared look shattered Sans's lethargic demeanor. "I see."

"Would you happen to know–"

"That's for her," he interjected abruptly. "Not me. Look, next time you see Alphys, make sure to tell her about the evacuations, okay? I'll be taking care of whatever I can from Snowdin–keeping Papyrus safe, you know." He gave a dry laugh. "Look at me, finally working as a sentry like my brother wants me to. I'll see you two around."

"Um, okay."

Sans put his head back down at his sentry station. Seeing their cue to leave, Nyssa stepped away. Clearly there was much he had left unsaid, but she knew him well enough to stop pressing. Adrian fell into step behind her, silent as well.

_To the CORE, then._


	48. I'm Listening

_Xandre_

_[Chara, that was a lot to take in.]_

_{I realize.}_

Xandre kicked a rock ahead of him as he walked, ducking into the grotto where more blue flowers and a telescope awaited him. A constellation of lights twinkled down from the ceiling far above.

"They're crystals," one of the cyan blossoms whispered.

Eyes wide, Xandre turned toward it and walked in that direction tentatively.

_{They're echo flowers. They repeat the last thing they heard, over and over.}_

"Hey, Nyssa? Could you check that wall over there?" another flower ahead of him added, louder this time. It spoke in the same voice as he had just heard, the voice of a boy his age. Just as he whirled around, yet another flower spoke.

"Sure…?" a girl's voice said uncertainly. The recording ended in a cry of surprise and a loud, mechanical grinding sound.

_[I can't believe it–it's the other two humans.]_

Here he was listening to them, to conversations they had when they thought they were alone. Maybe they had forgotten about the Echo Flowers' ability to preserve their voices as they talked. This exchange had been mundane, but maybe he would find something more important preserved deeper in Waterfall.

_{We're fortunate to come right behind them. The Echo Flowers will let us eavesdrop on their every last word.}_

Footsteps resounded ahead of them, around them. More recordings, a maze of sound. For a moment Xandre imagined going insane in this chamber, futilely chasing the ghosts of voices that had long faded. He found an opened passageway that led out onto a boardwalk framed by whispering rushes.  _The war of humans and monsters,_  a sign on the wall read. Xandre scanned each sign, stopping at the nearly-faded image of a monster and a human fused together.

In his mind, Chara trembled, and a chill raced down his spine. He needed no words from her to know what she was remembering.

_Chara killed herself so the monster prince could have her soul._

A series of images flashed into his mind, something neither he nor Wing had ever seen: a hand full of buttercup petals. An infirmary room blurring in and out of sight. The furry face of a young goat monster. A luminescent red heart. Metal, blood, fury, darkness. Vision fading away on a bed of golden flowers. Memories from yet another lifetime bled into Xandre's own, his reality melting away at its edges.

Although she must have tried to hide it, Xandre heard Chara's ragged gasp.  _{Let's keep going,}_ she urged.  _{Hurry.}_

He crouched on a small raft as it sped across the black water, clambering onto shore. He was alone, so why was he almost  _expecting_  someone to be waiting for him there? The air around him remained eerily still as he set off across the boardwalk. At regular intervals, he found cracked boards and scuffed footprints. There had been a chase here, maybe even a struggle.

_[Them again. It must have been. Do you think they were fighting Undyne?]_

_{Probably. We're lucky she hasn't showed up yet, but we should stay on edge just in case.}_

_[Do you think we could fight her and win?]_

Chara paused to think about that for a moment.  _{I'm not sure how strong Wing's magic is in you.}_

Xandre was about to remind her that he had killed Toriel when the thought of the Boss Monster gave him pause. Toriel was Chara's foster mother.  _That_  was who he had killed: A woman who once held Chara in her arms just as he did every night. His secondhand magical powers had reduced every trace of Toriel's devotion to dust.

_Why doesn't Chara hate me for it? She must know._

Xandre slowed to inspect a piece of cheese frozen into crystal. Beyond this room, something spoke to him. Something drew him into the next chamber. Ducking into a hallway of shadows, Xandre, too, found a place that wasn't even supposed to exist.

_Adrian_

Looking over Nyssa's shoulder as the notifications poured in (maybe they had walked into an area with particularly good service, he wasn't sure), Adrian bit his lip as he read over each of Alphys's perfectly frivolous status updates.

 _dinner with the girlfriend ;)_ (it was accompanied by an anime action figure and a bowl of instant noodles)

_omg!? ppl think Mew Mew 2 is better than Mew Mew 1? LOLLLLLLLL this is a joke right? omg DON'T THEY GET IT RUINS MEW MEW'S ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC!_

_My review of Mew Mew 2: Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 is neither Kissy nor Cutie! It's trash. 0 stars._

Adrian didn't understand.

How could Alphys, who raved over dating simulation games and became hopelessly enthralled with anime, also be the Royal Scientist hiding monstrous secrets just out of sight? Her two faces could not connect, yet they were flip sides of the same coin. Adrian wondered if she had even written those statuses crouched in her lab, trembling uncontrollably with the weight of whatever she had concealed.

The way she had cried out in terror and begged them not to say a word…

The way Sans had shut down immediately at the mention of Alphys's strange behavior…

_Wing left behind so many secrets, so many people we can't seem to be able to help._

Right on cue, the phone buzzed with a final status update:  _I need the bathroom, so I'll be MIA for a bit!_

"Whatever Alphys needs, I doubt it's the bathroom," Nyssa muttered.

_Incoming call: Papyrus_

"Where are you?" the younger skeleton brother asked from the other end of the line.

"Next to a safe with cheese in it," Nyssa replied. "Sorry that's a bit of a vague description. We just passed the puzzle with the steam that changes directions."

"Okay, be careful. The Royal Guard patrols that place. They're everywhere except Waterfall, which doesn't need them because it has Undyne! By the way, have you seen my lazy brother lately?"

"Selling hot dogs," Adrian contributed, leaving out the details.

"What? My brother's actually at his station, but he's selling  _hot dogs_  instead? Slacking off by doing work?" Papyrus gushed. "My brother is truly a master!"

"Yes, he certainly is."

"Anyway! Guess what!"

"What?"

"We can be friends on UnderNet now! Check your notifications! It took me a while to find you, but Alphys told me your username was… Wing… Dings? It's weird, though. It says the account is older than  _I_ am! But that's not even possible!"

"Oh?" Adrian responded uneasily.

"Yeah! I don't know–Undernet is funny sometimes. Anyway, check your notifications!"

"Are you  _CoolSkeleton95?"_  Nyssa asked, biting back a laugh at Papyrus's profile picture. He was wearing sunglasses and flexing in front of a mirror. Biceps had been pasted onto his arms, and even the  _muscles_ were wearing sunglasses.

"Yep, that's me!"

"Friend request accepted."

"Cool! I have to go now–Undyne's coming over. 'Bye!"

"See you."

There was another request underneath, from Napstablook22. Right before Nyssa could accept that one as well, it rejected itself.

"I hope he's all right," she sighed.

"Hey! Stop! You two!"

"What?" Nyssa nearly dropped the phone. Two armored figures walked side by side toward them, faces obscured by visors.

"We've, like, received an anonymous tip about humans in the Underground. Said two of them were in Hotland right now. You know what's crazy… apparently these guys can do magic as well."

"W-wow," Adrian managed. "That's… not great?"

"Yeah, it's scary, right? Well, stay chill. It's our job to bring you somewhere super safe before the humans get you. C'mon–this way."

"W-wait," the other guard sputtered.

"Yeah, bro? What's wrong?"

"Look at those two."

"B-bro… are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"Y-yeah… sorry… I think we're gonna have to kill you and stuff."

_Xandre_

_{I don't have a good feeling about this place, Xandre.}_

_[I know.]_  His surroundings had become significantly darker than the rest of Waterfall, and he could barely see his own hand in front of his face. Even when he was in it, the hallway hid from him, as if the Underground itself knew who he was.

_{The soul.}_

Xandre looked down. Materializing in front of his chest was the soul he and Chara now shared, its soft blue and white light emanating into the hallway. His soul gave off enough light to see by, and he caught sight of a gray door in the wall. He gravitated toward it, the white third in his soul visibly glowing brighter the closer he walked.

_{Xandre, this is weird, I don't like it at all.}_

Xandre exhaled slowly as his pulse picked up its pace.  _[I feel like we're being watched. It's like there's someone here with us.]_

_{Xandre, you're not making sen- WHO'S THAT?}_

_[Uh. Chara?]_

_{Xandre, you're right. Oh god. Leave. Leave now.}_

_[What? I physically can't leave! Chara, what did you see? Tell me!]_

_{With me. In your mind, in the void. There's a person standing in the distance. He's not talking. Just looking at me. Help. Help, Xandre, I'm scared. Wait. Xandre, it's the Royal Scientist.}_

_[What?]_  All the while, Xandre's feet moved of their own accord, stepping slowly closer to the gray door.

_{It's hard to tell who it is in the darkness. But I could swear it's-}_

Xandre pushed the door open, again not of his own will. Another presence possessed him, pulled him soul first into the room behind the door. Somebody was waiting for him there. A figure visible in bits and pieces, shrouded by the dark.

_[This isn't possible.]_

All of creation should have prohibited it.

The interplay of events across their timelines making it impossible.

None of this was supposed to happen. Glittering threads of time twisted together all at once, tangling themselves into unresolvable confusion. At that moment, it was as if the multiverse itself short-circuited.

_{Wing Gaster.}_


	49. I am Nowhere

_Adrian_

"Perish and… stuff…" RG01 muttered.

02 just sighed, and Adrian could hear the eye roll in its exhalation. "Armor too hot." Sensing no threat from the humans, it shed its chest plate. 01 began to shake.

"What's wrong, bro?"

"N-nothing."

"Bro. What is it?"

Like they were watching a tennis match, the humans' eyes flicked back and forth between the guards. Fighting had been cast aside by all four of them.

"I… I  _like_  like you, bro!" 01 blurted. "The way you fight… the way you talk… I love doing team attacks with you. I… I'd want to stay like this  _forever."_

02 hesitated.

"I… I mean," 01 stammered, desperately trying to backtrack,  _"psyche,_  bro! Totally g-got you there!"

"01. Hey. Uh. Do you want to… like… get ice cream?"

"Of course, b-bro."

The battle collapsed around them, freeing Nyssa and Adrian. Both quivering slightly in awe of what had just happened, the guards stood stupefied, looking at one another. Wrapped up in their own emotions, they paid no more attention to the humans. The guards didn't even lift their swords when Nyssa and Adrian slipped away to leave them to one another.

_Xandre_

Xandre's soul froze in front of his chest, the glow of its white third wavering. It gave one last frantic tug toward the faint figure, and Xandre dug in his heels to prevent himself from physically falling. All around him space was breaking, splitting at its seams and falling away in the edges of his vision.

The indistinct figure remained motionless, looking back at Xandre with an intense expression he couldn't quite identify.

He cried out to Chara, but her reply came back garbled and indistinct.

_Dark darker yet–_

When he blinked, the figure twitched unnaturally, as if it were on a glitching computer screen.  _This is not real,_  Xandre realized with a jolt.  _It's a projection from something. He can't really be in this room, alive._

_Can he?_

Just as he was thinking that, the image of Wing glitched again and disappeared. In its place was a string of Wingdings text, legible despite the distortions that rippled across them spasmodically.

_IAMNOWHERE_

_["I am nowhere".]_

_{No,}_  the girl in Xandre's head interrupted, her voice a terrified kind of quiet.

_[Chara? What is it, then?]_

_{"I am_  now here _".]_

_Nyssa_

Silence had fallen over Hotland–an eerie, unnatural,  _wrong_  silence. Where normally monsters would have crouched, nibbling on Nice Cream or conversing about their days, there was emptiness. The evacuations must have started, word getting around about Xandre. It wouldn't be long now until Alphys found out.

The humans passed through another deserted TV set, this time set up like a news reporter's station.

Their phone broke the silence: Papyrus was calling, again.

"Papyrus? Hello?"

"Hey, it's you guys! So, uh, Undyne told me to help out with the Waterfall evacuations. We… talked. It's dangerous there now, apparently."

"Xandre could still be there," Nyssa warned.

"Yeah, I know. But it's okay! Undyne is too cool to be scared, and she said I'll be safe as long as I stick with her. Anyway, I let her know that you guys were good people."

"Yeah…?"

"Uh-huh. She didn't sound too convinced, but I'm sure she'll love you guys when we finally hang out. One more thing–while we were getting the Waterfall monsters organized, this little Temmie told me to tell you guys she was back from college, and that she had something for you."

"The Temmie Armor," Nyssa remembered.

"One of you should come over to pick it up. You should hurry–we're leaving soon. Tem wanted to make sure you got it."

"Wait." Adrian hesitated.  _"One_  of us?"

"You'll need to catch River Person's ferry if you want to get here before we leave, and it can only hold one person. I can give you directions."

 _If we are to split up, Adrian would be the one going to Waterfall since I'm allergic to Temmies,_  Nyssa realized.  _This isn't a good idea. There are so many ways this could go wrong._

"I know it's risky to separate," Adrian said, sensing her unease. "But when we go into the CORE and New Home, that armor could save our lives hundreds of times over."

"I'm not  _totally_  convinced," Nyssa replied, although she couldn't argue with the promise of safety later on. And yet… the idea of separating from Adrian here in the Underground was unsettling. They were two parts of one soul, meant to find one another. They made each other powerful and safe. They had never been alone in the Underground before, never had to deal with monster encounters on their own.

"Guys?" Papyrus asked from the phone, reminding the humans that he was still there. "What's the plan? We've gotta go soon."

"I'll come," Adrian said.

"Yeah, he'll go," Nyssa added uncertainly.

"Cool! Adrian, take the phone, and Nyssa, don't worry. We'll be really quick."

Adrian turned to Nyssa. "Find someplace safe to wait?"

"Uh, sure."

"Hey, I'll make sure it's worth it, okay? Sorry."

"Okay…"

_Adrian_

Parting with Nyssa, even temporarily, felt almost physically difficult. The white third of his soul protested with every step he took, tugging him backward so it could rejoin its other piece. Knowing Nyssa could feel him moving farther and farther away, Adrian tried to keep down the guilt building in his stomach.

"The elevators are unlocked, right? Go to L1 and walk straight. The Lab should be on your left–keep walking. There's a set of steps leading down into the water, and the boat is there," Papyrus dictated.

"Yeah, I'm here," Adrian replied, glimpsing the shore of the underground river. Small gems glittered from the wall across from him, just as they did in Waterfall. There in the water drifted a boat he recognized from Wing's memories, steered by the same cloaked ferry-person that had spoken to him all those years ago.

"Tra la la," the figure sang softly. "I like to take rides in my boat. Would you like to join me?"

Although he knew it did not see Wing in him, Adrian could not help but eye the ferry-person warily as he boarded the boat. He hadn't expected to see it so calm, almost friendly.

"Where would you like to go today?"

"Waterfall," Papyrus prompted when Adrian hesitated to speak.

"Oh. Yes. Take me to Waterfall, please."

"All right. Tra la la." The boat began to move without any action on River Person's part, the oars from seventeen years ago no longer needed.

"You all settled? We've taken the monsters through a secret passageway to the beginning of Waterfall, so you'll have to walk there. You won't miss us. See you, and be careful," Papyrus reminded him.

"Bye."

Alone with River Person on the boat, surrounded by the echoes of the water, Adrian pocketed the phone. He wondered how Nyssa was doing and mentally apologized once again for leaving her alone.

"Tra la la," River Person sang in the lilting voice it had never used with Wing. "Beware the man who speaks in hands."

Adrian was caught off guard, scarcely believing he had just heard what the River Person said. "Wait, excuse me?"

The boat bumped softly against the shore before River Person could give any kind of response. Adrian could only climb out, bewildered, and look back at the silent figure.

_It was talking about him._

"Come back next time," it murmured. "Tra la la."

With that, the boat was gone.

_Xandre_

Unaware that monsters were evacuating through a hidden tunnel right beneath his feet, Xandre emerged from the dark hallway thoroughly unsettled.

_[Could he really still be here, in some form? How could he not have died in the CORE? His soul literally broke into pieces.]_

_{Magic is strange, Xandre,}_ came Chara's vague reply.  _{Just look at me.}_

Neither of them said anything else.

Dark bridges wound their way over luminescent water, its glow leading Xandre through a strangely silent meadow of Echo Flowers. Even these blossoms, which normally repeated the quietest of whispers for days, were holding their breath.

_{Look. Across from us, there's an island with no bridge connected.}_

Sure enough, a stretch of glowing water separated Xandre from a small patch of black grass and a single Echo Flower. He waded through the shallows to reach it, glittering droplets falling from his clothes onto the grass.

At Xandre's touch, the flower came to life.

The sloshing of water was followed by two pairs of wet feet on the grass. "This is… a nice place, I guess," a female voice said quietly. Xandre gave a start of recognition.  _Alphys._

"Yeah. It's peaceful here, isn't it?" came a response in Sans's distinctive baritone.

Xandre's eyes widened, and he leaned closer to the flower to make sure he didn't miss a word.

"Th-thanks for taking me here, Sans," Alphys stammered. Did Xandre hear tears in her voice? "You're the best brother ever."

"Aww, Alph, you know Papyrus is still a way cooler guy than I am."

Alphys gave a halfhearted chuckle. "Whatever you say."

There was a long period of silence.

"Anyway, I just wanted to check in. I know things've been happening really fast. You okay, Alph?"

"N-no," the young monster sputtered, dams breaking all at once. "Sans, I'm not ready for this. I'm n-not ready to be the Royal Scientist. I mean,  _look_  at me! You're the only one who works nowadays. All I do is sit and w-watch anime instead of  _dealing with my problems."_  She sniffed. "I'm sorry, I'm such a p-p-piece of trash, I should stop wasting your time, I should–"

"Hey. Alphys. Come here, sis."

Alphys began to sob, muffled by what Xandre guessed was Sans's hoodie. "I'm not Dad," she cried. "Asgore thinks I m-made a soul from scratch. I literally got picked for something I didn't even do, and I'm too g-g-garbage to even admit it to him. Who  _knows_  what h-he expects from me? I can't create the CORE, or discover Determination, or break the barrier. Asgore looks at me and s-sees the next Wing Gaster, but I'm just… I'm  _n-nothing._  There. I said it. Sans, I'm nothing."

"Shhh. Hey, Alph," Sans murmured in an attempt to comfort her, although his voice did quiver at the mention of his late father. "I know the bar's been set crazy high. But no one gets there overnight. Even Dad didn't do that. You can't just expect it to happen and destroy yourself if it doesn't." Sans hesitated. "You have time, Alphys. So much time. And I'm here. Even if you think it's ridiculous,  _I believe in you._  Stop crying, will ya? Oh, Alphys."

"Sans, I'm–"

"No, no, you have nothing to be sorry for, Alphys."

"Sans, I d-don't want to go back any time soon. I just need to g-get away from everything for a while."

"Hey, it's no problem. We'll stay here as long as you need, okay? I love you, sis."

_Adrian_

Landing at the other side of a disproportionately small gap, Adrian petted the tiny bird that had carried him over and continued out into Waterfall. He remembered walking through this area with Nyssa, listening to snatches of conversations they would never know. He remembered what she had said about wishing the flowers would rejoice one day when monsterkind went free.

The Echo Flowers were all so quiet today, deserted like Hotland had been.

All quiet except for one.

Adrian froze, feeling a tug on his soul much stronger and closer than the faint pull toward Nyssa. It pointed him in the direction of the one babbling Echo Flower, and as Adrian rose his head to look towards it, his heart plummeted.

A dark-haired human was crouching there beside the flower.

Xandre, too, felt another piece of Wing's soul calling him and turned around.


	50. Cornered

_Adrian_

The murderer stared at Adrian and Adrian stared back, motionless. Xandre's eyes narrowed when he took in the sight of Adrian's face, seemingly probing for something.

 _So this was Xandre._  The hands that had taken countless lives. The deep blue eyes that had watched monsters explode into dust. His soul hovered suspended in front of his chest, cyan melded into the white shard that strained for its matching piece even now. Adrian saw no trace of his sister's bright red, but surely the vision hadn't lied.

Bile rose in his throat.

If he weren't so petrified, Adrian might even have found it in himself to become angry. Hadn't he longed for an opportunity like this? A chance to avenge Toriel and save Chara from the clutches of this disgusting creature? But not here. Not now. Not in this abandoned corner of Waterfall, without Nyssa by his side.

For a beat the two boys said nothing, locked in place facing one another across an expanse of glowing water.

Pale soul marks ignited in Xandre's palms. He signed with a deadly efficiency even Nyssa was incapable of, the initial shock in his blue eyes transforming into murder in a heartbeat. Adrian had just enough time to glimpse the cloud of Wingdings materializing around Xandre before he whipped around and ran.

Going toward Snowdin would risk revealing the monsters' hiding place. Instead, Adrian took off deeper into Waterfall, swerving wildly to avoid falling into the cyan water. He heard splashing behind him and realized that Xandre was on his side of the shore now, rapidly closing in.

"I don't want to fight you," Xandre yelled. "I'd just like a few words. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

The murderer's words sent another wave of adrenaline shooting through Adrian's body, lending him speed he never knew he had as he fled across the maze of bridges. He urged himself to do what Nyssa did and reach deep into his memories, seeking anything that would bring his dormant soul marks to life, but nothing registered. Without Nyssa, he was defenseless.

The Echo Flowers around him had picked up Xandre's words, amplifying them tens of times until they became a maddening cacophony in Adrian's ears.  _Don't make this harder than it has to be,_  a flower under his feet whispered tauntingly.

"Stop running, Adrian," Xandre called out calmly. Adrian's heart skipped a beat–how did Xandre know his name? "There's a dead end ahead of you."

With a sickening jolt, Adrian realized that Xandre was right. In front of him the path terminated, dropping off into luminescent blue. He had no choice but to turn around and see Xandre blocking the pathway back, not five feet away from him.

"Adrian, it's deep there, I wouldn't try swimming if I were you–it's a small space, makes for an easy shot," Xandre warned. "These Wingdings bullets seem more powerful than they've ever been before. Maybe they're responding to  _your_  presence... you wouldn't want to die before we get to know each other, would you?"

A thousand responses battled at the tip of Adrian's tongue before he finally spat one of them out. "Where is Chara?"

_Xandre_

Chara let out a small choking sound.

Xandre knew he had seen something familiar when he took in Adrian's expression, the line of his jaw, the look in his brown eyes–but until now, he hadn't been able to put his finger on what. Now the conclusion was obvious, literally staring him in the face. The quivering teenager cornered in front of Xandre was male, and his hair and complexion were darker, but in his face were shades of the girl Xandre loved.

_[Chara, what is he to you?]_

The ghost girl hesitated.  _{I… I don't know!}_

_[Tell me!]_

_{Xandre, I have never seen this boy before in my life, honest! Although I… I see my father in him. He looks like the person who beat me.}_

_That's it,_  Xandre realized.  _Family._   _It's so obvious._

"Are you her brother?" Xandre demanded of Adrian. He didn't speak a word, but Xandre could see the confirmation in his eyes. "Older? Younger?" He peered into Adrian's face again, remembering what Chara had said about never seeing Adrian in her life. "Hmm. You're her  _little_  brother, aren't you? Funny how you're older than she is now."

"Y-you have her soul," Adrian finally sputtered. "I  _saw_  it. What are you doing to her?"

An idea came to Xandre. "Nothing good if you don't cooperate," he replied coolly. Chara's presence in his mind went cold–he would have to apologize for this later. "I'd just like to know a few things."

Adrian was trapped, and Xandre relished every moment of it. He twitched as if about to sign and Adrian stumbled back, almost falling into the water. "No Wingdings," Xandre noted, glancing at Adrian's unmarked palms.  _Truly helpless._  "That makes sense when you think back to Wing, doesn't it? Two hands, two holes, two concentrations of magical power. One of us three had to miss out when his soul split."

"Wing shattered unevenly? That explains how you got all his cruelty," Adrian spat.

"You could call it  _cruelty,"_  Xandre mused, "but he saw it as  _willpower._  Either way, it doesn't matter to you. I'd like to know what you  _did_  get. Let's see." In Wingdings, he spelled out what he would supposedly do to Chara–in graphic detail. Adrian recoiled as far as he could, shuddering in revulsion. Xandre, too, gagged internally at the notion of doing anything rougher to Chara than running his hands down her body, or pressing against her in the dark–but Adrian could not know that. For now, Xandre would have to play the blackmail card.

"So you can read. Presumably, that means you can write as well. What else are you capable of?"

Adrian set his jaw, shooting Xandre a look of deepest loathing. He ignored it.

"Not… telling you anything," Adrian snarled.

"All right, then. I'm sure your sister will appreciate that," Xandre replied lightly. Some of his Wingdings clustered into the shape of a red soul and he took it in his hands, stroking it once with a sickening slowness. "Remember I have her, but by all means, stay silent."

Adrian glared mutely at him, a battle raging behind his eyes. "I… remember things," he finally choked out.

"Remember  _what?"_

"Others'... abilities… and stats."

"Interesting–very, very interesting. Could you tell me mine?"

Adrian clenched his jaw, but complied when he glimpsed the soul still in Xandre's hand. He held Xandre's gaze for a while, a peculiar look on his face. "ATK444. DEF444. HP4444. LV9." Adrian trembled in hatred. "Y-you… you're even more powerful than the last time. Those stats are insane for a human. How many more monsters have you killed?"

"No, Adrian," Xandre replied, grinning as the revelation came to him. "Stats increase with EXP, but only for regular souls. But us? We're a special case. A fragmented soul. It's not EXP that increases our power, but our  _proximity_  to each other _._  What were Wing's stats?"

"ATK666. DEF666. HP6666."

"You see? I'm willing to bet that on our own, each of us have ATK222, DEF222, HP2222. One-third of Wing's original. But it gets interesting when you put two of us near each other _,_  and both our stats double. Hence the 4444. Then if we got  _Nyssa_  to join us, we'd each become as powerful as Wing himself, wouldn't we? Shame one of us  _can't actually attack,"_  he added.

Adrian made as if to spit at Xandre, but Xandre raised an eyebrow at him, reminding him of his sister. "Where  _is_  Nyssa, by the way?" Xandre asked casually. "Aren't the two of you supposed to be together?"

"Hotland," Adrian replied through gritted teeth.

_Nyssa_

_Where is Adrian right now?_

Nyssa leaned against an elevator building marked L1, on the isolated side where no monsters walked. She wished she had been able to find a more secure place. Wished she had a way to contact Adrian. She wished many things, none of which settled the restlessness she felt down to her soul.

 _Adrian and I should not have split up._ Something deep in her core trembled on Adrian's behalf. Nyssa closed her eyes, ignoring the constant grinding of clockwork and the vibrations of the metal building at her back, and channeled all her magical ability to reach out to him. Her indigo-and-white soul appeared in front of her chest, flaring bright with the strength of her willpower.

 _Where are you?_  The piece of Wing's soul seemed to cry.  _Friend, partner, broken shard, where are you?_

Something was not right.

"Adrian," Nyssa whispered out loud. "Are you in danger?"

"Hmm? Are you calling for someone?" A curious voice murmured. Nyssa's eyes flew open and she cried out, finding herself face to face with a gray monster that seemed to be a head sprouting from the ground. The magic she had attempted using to locate Adrian immediately shot into her hands. Wingdings flared in the air around her.

Realizing what she'd just done in front of the monster–which stared at her with an almost pleased look of recognition–Nyssa willed the magical bullets and her soul to disappear, but it was too late. Her powers had already been seen.

"Who are you?" she stammered.

The monster only hummed thoughtfully in response. "I understand why Asgore took so long to hire a new Royal Scientist," it said after a while.

Nyssa shivered. So this was yet another of  _those_  creatures.

"The previous one… Dr. Gaster," the monster continued. "His brilliance was irreplaceable. However, his life was cut short."

"Who were you to him?" Nyssa burst out, deciding to cut straight to the point. "You, and the other gray monsters. And how… can you  _see_ him in me…?" Nyssa turned her hands palms up, the soul marks invisible and dormant.

The monster peered at her hands, and looked back up from them to meet her eyes. "Collateral damage."

 _"Collateral damage?"_  Nyssa echoed.

The monster nodded slowly. "Dr. Gaster–or I suppose you would know him as  _Wing–_ was far from being the only monster in the CORE when that device of his went off."

"Oh," Nyssa replied quietly.

If the talking head could shrug, Nyssa thought it would have done so just then. "Strange things happen when one is exposed to the winds of space-time, do they not? It seems I'm bound to him now. He really  _is_  a brilliant one, you know. It's a shame the CORE claimed him. Most of him, anyway."

The monster gave a meaningful look over Nyssa's shoulder. Even without checking, Nyssa knew that she would find nothing there.

"Well, I mustn't gossip. It's rude to talk about someone who's listening."

_Adrian_

"I'm not going to take her," Xandre assured Adrian. "I have plans of my own, you know."

"Like torturing my sister?" Adrian spat. He had always known Xandre was a murderer, but Adrian had never hated him more than when he'd threatened to hurt Chara. "Do not lay a finger on her."

"Hey, hey, as I said," Xandre replied, holding out a hand in a placating gesture. "I won't do anything as long as you tell me what I want to know. But just saying, aren't you a bit overprotective of a sister you've barely even met?"

"As if  _you_  know anything about brotherhood."

"Brotherhood. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? Awfully idealistic, to be honest. Just look at Papyrus. His devotion to Sans makes him weak."

Adrian held his tongue, wishing he could summon magic and fight back. He was so helpless here. Such an easy target for Xandre to bully.

He had to rescue Chara from this murderer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of brotherhood.
> 
> I'm sure Chara was thinking about someone else when Xandre said that...


	51. On My Side

_Xandre_

_{Adrian is really my brother.}_  That was the first time Chara had spoken, and Xandre gave a start at her words.

_[Chara!]_

_{You used me as a bargaining chip.}_

_[I'm s-]_

_{Stop that, and don't be. What I mean is,_ he took it.  _Adrian doesn't even know me, and he took the bait.}_ Emotions battled within her voice: incredulity, melancholy, something deep and warm Xandre could not name.  _{It's unusual. He doesn't seem… broken, the same way I was. As if our parents never laid a finger on him. If I didn't know better, I might even wonder whether they really loved him.}_

"Who knows? Maybe they do, Chara. Maybe they changed, after you disappeared."

Adrian jerked his head upward, and Xandre's heart plummeted when he realized he'd spoken to Chara out loud.

Chara's brother narrowed his dark eyes at Xandre.  _"What_  did you just say?"

"That's not your business," Xandre snarled, Wingdings condensing into an attack array behind him. Even then, he knew the intimidation tactics had lost their power. The damage had been done.

"It's very much my business," Adrian replied. A new kind of fire in his eyes, he straightened to his full height, muscles suddenly taut. Xandre stamped down the instinct to take a step back. Despite Xandre's brilliant cyan soul marks, Adrian met his glare without fear. "I heard my sister's name."

Xandre said nothing.

"Are you  _talking_  to her? You really have her, don't you? You're in  _contact_  with her!"

"So what if I am?" Xandre countered, switching tactics. "And what if she's on  _my_  side, Adrian? Ever thought of that?"

Adrian's expression faltered. He flinched, as if Xandre had slapped him. "What the hell are you talking about?" he spat.

"Your sister is a smart girl. Apparently that doesn't run in the family. So, Adrian, maybe she prefers someone who can bring her a better life over  _a brother she's never met."_

Was it possible for Adrian to look even more disgusted? Underneath his glare and his curled lip, Xandre could see terror.  _He may be a bit slow, but he can tell that I'm right._  "So she believes you're  _helping_  her."

"She doesn't just  _believe_  it. I'm not lying to her, Adrian," Xandre replied. "The plan is ours. Everything we do, we do together."

_"Together?_  What are you-"

"You don't really think I'd tell you anything, do you?"

"What lies have you been feeding her, Xandre? What did you do to my sister?"

"I'm in love with her," Xandre snapped.

Those words left a shock wave in their wake, rendering both boys silent for a moment. Chara inhaled sharply.

"You  _what?"_  Adrian finally burst out.

_"I'm in love with her,"_  Xandre repeated, more forcefully this time. "And she's in love with me. You didn't know that, did you? So before calling me a villain, or accusing me of manipulation, quit assuming something makes  _you_  special. That for whatever reason, she'd choose  _you."_

"You lie–"

"Didn't expect you to understand. Just stay out of this, Adrian, or I'll get rid of you myself."

"No, you won't," snapped a third voice, in a tone Xandre had never expected.

His heart froze in his chest.  _Not this again._

"You're never doing that to my friend. Do you know why? The Great Papyrus is here to stop you!"

_Adrian_

Adrian whirled around to find Papyrus standing behind him, shoulders set back and attacks readied in the truest expression of courage he had ever seen. Looking at Papyrus, Adrian would have no problem believing he was already a Royal Guard. In fact, right there beside him was Captain Undyne herself. She twirled a spear in one hand, more already forming around her.

Papyrus tossed Adrian a cloth sack, and he staggered when he caught it. It was heavier than he had anticipated, and he peered inside to find chainmail armor glistering turquoise. In the bag with the armor were two small containers of… spaghetti?

"Run, human," Undyne hissed at him. "Papyrus had better be right about saving you."

Adrian did not need to be told twice.

Clutching the bag to his chest, he pelted in the direction of River Person's boat just as spears and bones and Wingdings filled the air.

A safe distance away, he glanced back for a split second, just in time to see Xandre hurled several feet by the impact of Undyne's attack. The human slumped to the ground and did not get back up.

Adrian kept running.

_Nyssa_

After the talking head's disappearance, Nyssa found herself alone once again. She had been lucky that the first monster to encounter her had not intended to cause harm.

_Where is Adrian?_

The elevator dinged. At the same time, something tugged hard on Nyssa's soul, and she scrambled to her feet.

"I got the Temmie Armor," a familiar voice called out.

"Adrian!" She rushed over to her friend, about to tell him what had happened when she noticed the shadows in his eyes. Something was very wrong. "Adrian? What–"

"Xandre was there," Adrian growled.

Nyssa took a step back. "Wait, excuse me?"

"Xandre was there," he repeated, "in Waterfall. He attacked me with Wingdings, threatening to... to hurt someone I cared about."

Nyssa's eyes widened.  _Adrian can't do magic on his own. Next to Xandre, he is helpless._  "How did you get away? And how could he possibly threaten you like that? He doesn't know a thing about the people you care about. He doesn't even know a thing about  _caring."_

"Undyne and Papyrus showed up and told me to run. I'm pretty sure they knocked Xandre out." Adrian said nothing about the person Xandre had used to manipulate him, and Nyssa frowned. This was certainly not the first time he had been evasive about his personal connections.

"Well, it's good you're safe," Nyssa replied carefully. "And you got the armor, too."

"Yeah," he agreed, brightening slightly when he set the sack on the ground and opened it. "Oh, yeah–Papyrus made us spaghetti." Setting aside the pasta, he pulled out a shirt of chain mail, the light of the lava ocean catching its sea-green links. Had Nyssa not known better, she would almost have assumed it too elegant a thing for the rage of battle.

"That's... so beautiful."

"It is, right? And not just that–it's also one of the  _strongest_  pieces of armor ever crafted down here. The Temmie had only one set to sell, but we can just take turns with it."

"Well, after what just happened, and considering…" Nyssa's eyes wandered, just as Xandre's had, to Adrian's hands. "Considering our different abilities, I think you should have it. At least for now."

_Xandre_

Xandre's head was  _pounding._

Sitting up slowly, he bit back a groan. Barely distinguishable forms swam before his eyes, resolving slowly into hulking, lumpy piles all around him. It was dark here. And  _wet._ His clothes were soaked, carrying the reek of things thrown away.

_[Chara? Where are we?]_

Chara, too, sounded disoriented.  _{I'm... not sure. The last thing I remember is Undyne attacking us.}_

_[She must have knocked me out,]_ Xandre realized.  _[Why didn't she kill me? And where did she dump us?]_

_{It's almost like she was in a hurry to get somewhere.}_

_[Maybe.]_

On shaking legs, Xandre forced himself to stand, screwing his eyes tightly shut against the pain that spiked anew in his head.

_[Chara, we're in a garbage dump.]_


	52. Done With Hiding

_Xandre_

_[There's no one here, either,]_ Xandre complained, feeling sewer water slowly seep into his boots as he trudged his way out of the Garbage Dump.  _[No monsters left hiding out in the trash.]_

_{I think they've long evacuated by now.}_

_[Do you think that's why Adrian came? To help with the evacuations? Maybe that's where Undyne and Papyrus were going.]_ It hit Xandre that he had been face-to-face with Undyne just now. He'd had the perfect opportunity to strike her down.

 _{You couldn't have done it,}_ Chara tried, sounding once again like she could read his mind.  _{Papyrus and Adrian were there, too, and they took us by surprise. You don't seem to do very well whenever that happens…}_

_[Okay, I'm sorry.]_

_{Next time, we won't be quite as unprepared.}_

Finding dry land, Xandre scrambled up to a point where the path branched in five directions. Peering down the tunnels, he caught glimpses of a house and a snail farm, neither of which appealed to him. Instead, he followed the sound of sloshing water down the rightmost path.

_{Look–an empty shop.}_

Xandre picked his way into Gerson's abandoned grotto, still packed with the goods he had never gotten around to selling. He took as much of it as would fit in his pack–broken glasses, a beaten notebook, several oddly-shaped apples and flasks of something called Sea Tea–as well as all the Gold he could extract from the cash register.  _Score._  He had just found sufficient food and money to sustain himself (in case any stores were still in business at this point), and hopefully give him a better chance against Undyne.

Across from Gerson's shop, Xandre found a tunnel that opened out into a chamber: the bank of the Underground's longest river.

In the water drifted a boat manned by a single hooded monster.

"Tra la la," it sang. "I like to take rides in my boat. Would you like to join me?"

Without hesitation, Xandre climbed in. "Where can you go?"

"Snowdin to the west, and Hotland to the east."

_{Sweet. A shortcut.}_

_[Our luck keeps getting better, doesn't it?]_

"Take me to Hotland."

_Adrian_

The elevator took Nyssa and Adrian a level of Hotland they had never seen before. The floor was sleek red metal, lit by electric lights. A tangle of cobwebs obscured the ceiling. Behind a small booth, a spider girl glanced at them with all five of her eyes. She was wearing a frilly pink blouse with a bow in the center, and had ribbons in her hair.

"Welcome to my parlor, dearie," she called out in a sickly sweet voice. "Proceeds go to real spiders! 9999G for anything on my web!"

"N-no thanks," Adrian stammered, even though the girl was now staring at him in an almost hungry way. She licked her lips slowly, and Adrian felt every hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

The phone in his pocket buzzed. Beyond relieved to break eye contact with the creepy spider girl, he pulled it out.

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ omg guess who's coming over now! THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD HERSELF!

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_  (she probably wants me to evacuate. haha no, i think i'll stay right here with my mistakes.)

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_  she said she's on her way?!

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_ wait nononononono i still haven't cleaned up yet

 _ **ALPHYS**_   _updated status:_ okokok calm down alphys you're prepared! scale cream! magical spear repair kit! plus she said you were cute once! everything is going to be fine! right?

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_  no. who am i kidding. it's not.

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_ this stuff with souls and breaking the barrier and those humans, it's making me think. heck, WDG is literally dead, and two thirds of him are still doing more for the underground than three thirds of me.

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_  u know what i'm done with hiding.

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_ oh god i forgot i'm posting this as a STATUS?

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_  if anyone saw that, please just forget i said anything!

 _ **ALPHYS**_ _updated status:_ hehe?

Nyssa and Adrian looked at one another, then back at the phone.

"'Done with hiding'?"

"She's going to tell Undyne," Nyssa murmured. "Whatever that thing was she couldn't tell us."

"I hope they'll be safe. Not just from whatever Alphys is hiding. From Xandre, too."

"You said Undyne knocked him out?"

"Yeah. But I know he's not dead–I feel it. Undyne was in a hurry. I don't think she finished him off before she got the monsters situated and went to the Lab."

Nyssa's expression turned dark. "She should've."

_Xandre_

"Tra la la. Beware the man from the other world. Beware, beware the man who speaks in hands… tra la la..."

_["Speaks in hands"? What'd Wing ever do to the River Person?]_

_{Hmm. Good thing it doesn't seem to recognize you.}_

_[What do you mean?]_

_{I_ mean,  _Xandre, that it's not just talking about Wing Gaster.}_

Xandre narrowed his eyes at the hooded figure steering the boat, which was still humming lightly.

 _The other world._ The Surface.  _Speaks in hands._  Indeed, Xandre could still feel the residual energy buzzing through his veins from when he'd threatened Adrian with his powers.

 _{It's talking about_ you.}

_Nyssa_

The puzzle solved with ease, Nyssa and Adrian stood before a pair of doors that slowly ground open to reveal the next segment of the Underground. It, too, was red metal with a ceiling of increasingly dense cobwebs.

"Agh!" Nyssa yelled.

An spider the size of her hand descended slowly from the ceiling and hung suspended in front of them, rubbing its front legs together and looking the humans up and down with its beady eyes. Nyssa and Adrian froze, not daring to move a muscle. After it had looked at them for a while–as if memorizing their faces–the spider scrambled back up its silk thread and disappeared.

"I really, really don't like this place," Nyssa muttered. The sight of that enormous spider sent prickles through her skin, as if a hundred tiny legs were scuttling across her body. She had a bad feeling about all this–the cobwebs, the bugs, the bake sale stand.

"I don't like it either," Adrian agreed. "Did you see the way that creepy girl stared at me?"

Neither human was aware that the "creepy girl" perched suspended in the web of spider silk directly above them, listening to their conversation with a very amused smile on her face.

_Xandre_

"Tra la la. Here we are."

Beyond the dock, Xandre could see a set of steps carved into dusty red stone.

_Hotland._

This time, he couldn't suppress his grin. The boat rocked when he stepped off, already eager to climb the steps and see what awaited him in this new place. New, but not foreign–memory, as usual, was there to guide him. And it told him that right near the top of those steps was the entrance to the royal lab.

_And where there's a royal lab, there's a Royal Scientist inside._

He fingered the handle of his knife.

It wouldn't be smart to kill the River Person now, not while it might still be useful to him. But Alphys… that was a different story. With any luck, he would take out one of the most important people in the Underground today.

_That'll make for quite a spectacle, won't it? The monsters will despair–even more than they already have. And once Alphys is dead, Undyne will come running. I'll be ready for her this time._

Undyne was someone he and Chara needed to kill, but Xandre considered Alphys more like his personal prize. He had been born of her predecessor's demise, after all.

"Come again soon!" The River Person's hooded figure called up to him. "Tra la la."

_Nyssa_

The two humans followed the path into a dark, moist cavern that once might have been a purple room. There wasn't enough light to see clearly in front of them; a sticky substance tugged at their boots from beneath their feet, and gossamer threads of  _something_  kept drifting in front of Nyssa's face.

From every corner came the glimmer of tiny eyes and the scuttling of a thousand feet.

"Ahuhuhu~"

The giggle came from above them. Nyssa flinched, snapping her head upward. There was nothing there but darkness and yet more spider silk. She realized that these cobwebs were positively  _crawling_ with spiders, a nest of wriggling legs suspended far above her.

"Did you hear what they just said?" a girl's voice whispered, as if spilling juicy gossip to a classmate. "They said two humans would come through. One in a dress, one in a tattered shirt and shorts. Oh, I've heard so many funny stories about them."

There was a cacophony of hissing and clicking, of pairs of forelegs rubbed eagerly together in anticipation of her tale.

"I've heard they have magic in their hands. That they can summon bullets just like monsters can. And what's more? Ahuhu~ the juciest part… is that their souls are  _part human, part monster."_

More hissing.

"I heard that they  _hate_  spiders. I heard that they love to stomp on them. I heard that they love to  _tear their legs off."_

Nyssa bit back a scream when she saw a spider crawling up her arm. As silently as possible, she batted it away, shivering upon contact with its tough exoskeleton.

"I heard… that they're awfully stingy with their money."

There was the rustling of something, something much more massive than a spider, slowly descending to the humans' left.

It was the girl from the bake sale. She gripped the threads of an enormous web with eight long legs, spiders swarming all around her–on her web, on her clothes, in her hair. When she smiled, long, curved fangs emerged from her mouth. Venom beaded at the tip of each one.

"So you think your taste too refined for our pastries, do you not? Ahuhuhuhu~ I disagree, dearies. Such rare souls… a tingle of magic… I think your  _taste_  is exactly what this next batch needs!"

All around Nyssa and Adrian, from their left and right and even from above, spiders were creeping toward them, blocking off all possible escape routes. Nyssa tried lifting her foot and found that she couldn't. A team of spiders had created a fine silk web over her boots.

She and Adrian had been glued in place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, it's me and I am officially BACK into writing fan fiction! Since it's summer and I'm (relatively) free of responsibility now, I've begun to write quite a lot. The second part of this chapter/plot point will be uploaded shortly.
> 
> Yes, I've now successfully cross-posted all of the chapters (so far) to AO3. From now on, this should follow a more regular update schedule.


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